Commentary: Why Washington does not support ceasefire in Ukraine

BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Russia from March 20 to 22 at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Xi's visit to Russia will be a trip of friendship, cooperation and peace, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday in a daily news briefing.

He also reiterated China's position on the ongoing Ukraine crisis, saying that "China will continue to uphold its objective and just position on the Ukraine crisis and play a constructive role in promoting peace talks."

Surprisingly, or not, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby responded by saying that Washington opposed a possible call by China for a ceasefire in Ukraine because it would allow Russia to "restart attacks."

No matter what the United States will do to defend its position, the international community can now easily see that Washington does not want to see an end to the conflict it has done so much to foster and escalate all along.

Moreover, the United States is apparently not willing to see a political solution to the crisis, nor does it want to see that both sides can settle for peace.

Although Washington always tries to portray itself as a sympathizer with the weak, that is certainly not who it is. The fact is that the United States, together with its allies, are piling up military assistance to Ukraine, and would rather let the conflict-torn Ukrainians continue to suffer from the bloody crisis until their last drop of blood is spilled than put a stop to the conflict.

It might seem cold-blooded and even self-contradictory. Yet if take a deeper look into why it is so, you can find that the United States as a matter of fact takes the crisis as a business in which it can make a big fortune.

To be more specific, Washington, by prolonging the conflict, can weaken Russia and force Europe to further rely on the United States in security matters so that it can consolidate its hegemony. Plus, it can also profit enormously from the crisis. The recent news claiming that the United States was responsible for explosions of the Nord Stream pipelines can tell so much.

According to the latest data from market research firm Kepler, in the context of the escalating crisis in Ukraine, natural gas transmission channels of Russia-Europe pipelines have been restricted, and the demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the EU has surged.

Specifically, the EU's LNG imports from the United States increased by 23.59 million tons compared with 2021, a year-on-year rise of 154 percent.

The world has suffered terribly because of an egoistic and self-serving United States. Because of the conflict, the Ukrainians have lost hugely; the Europeans are dragged into a quagmire, and the world is being forced to be separated along an ideological divide. Moreover, the food, energy and financial crises the conflict has triggered continue to wreak havoc.

Now it is increasingly clear that to pursue its self-interests, Washington can do anything, like stalling peace efforts and opposing a ceasefire. To be a responsible major country, the United States should stop being the destroyer of peace and creator of crises, shift to the right side of history, and help bring this disaster to an end.