Guancha: Recently, senior U.S. officials have come out frequently to attack and smear China. Their onslaught has gone far beyond even the wildest imaginations. A handful of U.S. politicians have abandoned fundamental laws and rules, diplomatic norms and political ethics, and have acted in pure political hooliganism. What's your comment on such degenerate practices of U.S. politicians?
Le Yucheng: Your question rightly sums up the two major features of some U.S. politicians. First, they lie readily. Second, they break the law habitually.
Do not lie - that is the most basic norm for the general public, let alone key government officials and senior diplomats. You may dissent, disgruntle, and object, or just make no comment. But you may not ignore facts and churn out rumors. Some U.S. politicians, however, are telling packs of lies, particularly when it comes to smearing China. They do so without even the slightest trace of shame. Among many others, they claim that the United States rebuilt China; China wants to rule the United States; the United States is ripped off by doing business with China; COVID-19 was created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology; China steals U.S. intellectual property on COVID-19 vaccines; Huawei, TikTok and other companies directly provide personal data to China's national security authorities; the 1.4 billion Chinese people are under surveillance and persecution in China; the Chinese government is carrying out religious persecution and ethnic genocide in Xinjiang. These assertions are so fictional and preposterous that they cannot even deceive little kids. Some Internet users are collecting these political lies and plan to publish them. Once published, it will be a typical negative example for the world.
As for breaking laws, the United States is always selective about the application of international law. It preaches international law to others but sticks to "American Exceptionalism", putting itself above the international law. The U.S. repressive moves against China have no legal basis at all. None of its actions conforms with international law - increasing tariffs, cutting off supplies to Huawei, banning TikTok, detaining Chinese citizens, selling arms to Taiwan, imposing sanctions on Chinese central government and Hong Kong SAR government officials, and closing Chinese Consulate-General in Houston.
Over the years, the United States has been acting with absolutely no respect for the law and justice when it goes around the world to incite color revolution here and there, grossly interfere in others' internal affairs, arbitrarily enforce long-arm jurisdiction, threaten use of force, and even carry out decapitation operations. The United States has withdrawn from over a dozen international treaties and organizations, crowning itself as the world champion in this respect. In particular, at the critical moment of global cooperation against COVID-19, the United States made groundless accusations against the World Health Organization, pulled out of it, and suspended its funding for WHO. That is like when everyone is busy putting off the fire, the U.S. moves to shut off the water. And that has crossed the moral line in international relations, and completely violated the basic principles of international law and the UN Charter. The United States claims that it wants a rules-based international order. But in fact, its so-called "rules" is nothing but power politics and U.S. privileges to do whatever it wants. As former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch pointed out, the United States "blunt and amoral" foreign policy "cannot work over the long haul".
