Washington only deceiving itself with its chicanery

Editor's note: A lie is still a lie even if told a thousand times, but this principle is always "selectively" ignored by the United States administration in its dealings with China. Zhong Sheng, a columnist for People's Daily, comments:

Despite the steady progress China's economy has been making, with GDP growth rate in the first half of the year registering 6.3 percent year-on-year, the US administration keeps claiming that "things are very bad in China". Likewise, despite China's active response to the US' concerns over fentanyl and its implementation of a strict fentanyl control system, the US administration still accuses China of being the main source of fentanyl in the US, in an attempt to blame China for the fentanyl abuse in that country. And, despite the fact China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are making progress in their talks on a code of conduct for the South China Sea, the US administration still accuses China of preventing the development of the South China Sea by coercion, saying China's intimidating behavior toward its Southeast Asian neighbors threatens peace and stability in the region.

Washington should realize that the international community knows what is right and wrong, and that its tricks aimed at stirring up trouble will neither change nor subvert the truth.

Obsessed with putting "America first", the US administration has willfully escalated economic and trade frictions with China by cooking up such charges as China is stealing jobs and intellectual property rights. But such groundless accusations will only make more and more US enterprises and consumers victims of the administration's policies and add huge risks to the world economy.

The US administration has also been hyping up "China's threat", claiming that China is a "threat" not only to the US, but also to developing countries, and even falsely calling China's foreign development assistance a "debt trap". As for this malicious and untrue accusation, some countries' leaders have come out and publicly refuted it. Some people of insight in the US have also called for Washington to not view China as an enemy.

Washington should know that respecting facts and being responsible for one's words and deeds are the basic principles and norms of international exchanges.

The US administration should not overestimate its ability to stir up trouble, let alone indulge in the illusion that it holds the world on the palm of its hand.