U.S. is indeed destroying its image by discrediting China with lies

Some U.S. politicians, out of the intention to contain and oppress China, are always looking for outdated instruments from the Cold War toolbox, frequently discrediting China and provoking conflicts with lies they have fabricated.

Such dangerous practice mirrors Washington’s inaccurate understanding of China and China-U.S. relations and reflects these U.S. politicians’ ignorance about international situations. It will only lead to a loss of all sides and be abandoned by the times.

To frame up China, these U.S. politicians fabricated and spread lies in a ridiculous manner.

U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul recently issued a so-called report that once again made hypes about the “Wuhan lab leak theory”. The report exaggerated the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s budget for central air-conditioning by 1,000 times to prove there’s something “unusual” about it.

In an open letter, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ford confirmed that from December 2020 to early January 2021, under the direction of former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Office of Policy Planning under the U.S. State Department instructed relevant officials to bypass biological scientists to brief this false argument inside the Department that the coronavirus is a biological agent deliberately unleashed upon the world by the Chinese government.

There are more such cases. In a word, the fabrication and spreading of rumors by these U.S. politicians are totally immoral.

Besides, some U.S. media organizations have also joined the “origin tracing show” of these U.S. politicians and played a very indecent role, frequently citing the so-called intelligence reports and anonymous officials with insinuations.

After the publication of the illogical and deceiving report by McCaul, The Washington Post even claimed in an article that “it presents a convincing case that the lab leak theory must be investigated thoroughly, with or without the Chinese government’s permission.” There’s no trace of independence, objectivity, and authenticity these U.S. media outlets have long bragged about in such articles.

To advocate science-based origin tracing, the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. wrote articles that stated China’s stance and facts and tried to contribute them to some U.S. media organizations. However, the ambassador was rejected every time, which further revealed the hypocrisy of the so-called freedom of the press and speech in the U.S.

To start a new Cold War against China, some U.S. politicians are making troubles for China-U.S. relations with all means possible. Some Chinese enterprises were listed as Communist Chinese Military Companies just because the Chinese government once awarded their founders. Some Chinese students were said to have a military background and repatriated just because they saved photos of military training, an almost mandatory course for Chinese college students, in their phones.

To persuade more U.S. citizens to believe that China is an imaginary enemy of the U.S. and to make mischief between China and other countries, they not only requested Washington to expand the Countering Chinese Influence Fund, but also mobilized media, think tanks, and enterprises to launch a comprehensive social war against China.

Even in the U.S., rational voices are warning the danger of taking China as a threat. Bruce Jentleson, William Preston Few professor of public policy and political science at Duke University, noted that the China threat is being inflated in ways that are counterproductive for foreign-policy strategy and distort domestic politics in dangerous ways.

It would be absurd and dangerous to apply the “Cold War playbook” to today’s China-U.S. relations, or take China as the U.S.’ rival and imaginary enemy, just like when Don Quixote tilted at windmills.

In today’s world, where economic globalization is taking place in a profound manner, countries are seeing integrated interests. The demand for cooperation between China and the U.S. is rising rather than going down when the world faces increasingly more risks. U.S. politicians who want to decouple with China through political manipulation and win the so-called new Cold War against China by bloc politics are just ignorant about the development of China and the world.

The international society is generally worried about the dangerous acts of the U.S. politicians seeking confrontations with China. Even the allies of the U.S. are not willing to be included in an “anti-China alliance”.

Washington’s China policy should not be abducted by these politicians or established on presumptions and lies. Such practices of the U.S. politicians would only lead to a poorer image of the U.S..

It is a fact that China and the U.S. differ in ideology, social system, culture, and history. No one is able to change the other. The right approach remains to find a way of peaceful coexistence between the two major countries based on mutual respect, which is the only path that the China-U.S. relations should seek, and the only way left for the two countries.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy and international affairs.)