Chinese state media have accused American leaders of pushing the world towards conflict by their Beijing-skeptic policies and abandonment of multilateral diplomacy, framing Beijing as the victim of Washington, D.C.'s aggressive foreign policy.
The Global Times and China Daily newspaper—both under the control of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—published editorials on Tuesday condemning the hardening U.S. stance towards China, which has been fortified by human rights disputes, territorial frictions and the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
China has emerged as America's number one strategic challenge during President Donald Trump's time in office. There is now growing bipartisan agreement in Washington, D.C.—and gradually among some of America's European allies, too—that the West's naive and commercialistic China policy has failed and requires an overhaul.
Chinese state media is at the forefront of Beijing's efforts to defend itself and dodge blame for its aggressive foreign policy, malign trade practices, abuse of human rights at home, and its mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now claimed 539,000 lives worldwide according to Johns Hopkins University.
Global Times—often used to air the most nationalistic and belligerent sentiment from within the CCP—accused the U.S. Tuesday of "pushing the world back to confrontation between major powers" and undermining the international diplomatic order.
Global Times equated China's current position with that of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, suggesting the U.S. had "pulled geopolitical levers and imposed the most intense strategic pressure on Russia" via the expansion of NATO.
The editorial said Russia was left with "no other options but to take countermeasures," suggesting that China was now facing the same dilemma.
"Now, the U.S. is using its extreme geopolitical tools on China," Global Times said. "It is making the ideological conflict with China more extreme, because it is the cheapest means to mobilize its allies against China."
"It supports all countries that have territorial disputes with China, incites them to adopt a hard-line approach toward China, and smears China's foreign cooperation to overthrow the world order. It aims to worsen China's external environment, and make people in other countries less willing to cooperate with China."
The U.S. has been backing Chinese neighbors in their territorial disputes with Beijing, from India to Japan to the South China Sea.
China also still claims the independent democratic island nation of Taiwan as part of a unified China and has threatened to take control of it by force, but the U.S. has backed Taipei with military support and is required by law to defend it against a Chinese invasion.
Global Times claimed Washington was forcing other nations to take sides against Beijing in this new era of open competition between the two mammoth economies. This polarization, the newspaper said, will undermine economic growth and encourage "an arms race and intimidation."
The "geopolitical maniacs in the U.S." are heralding the end of the long period of great power peace since the end of the Cold War, the editorial warned. "We are likely to enter a new era with more hatred and the menace of war...The U.S. political elite behind such changes are bound to be shamed by history."
China Daily, meanwhile, accused the U.S. of "brattish behavior" for having "stubbornly clung to unilateralism and constantly walked away from its commitments to key international agreements."
"The current U.S. administration's penchant for unilateralism and frequent withdrawal from international agreements have had negative impacts on global stability," China Daily said, lauding the Chinese regime for having approved the Arms Trade Treaty, which Trump has refused to recognize.
China Daily said the U.S. was behaving "like a spoiled child," and urged Washington to "grow up and shoulder its responsibilities to bring countries together and safeguard world peace and stability."
Though he did not explicitly name the U.S., Chinese ambassador to the United Nations Zhang Jun said Tuesday that a "certain country... walked away from international commitments, and launched acts of unilateralism and bullying."
This, Zhang said, "has brought huge uncertainties to the global strategic balance and stability, and seriously undermined the joint efforts of all countries to tackle global challenges."
