US needs to understand that wars achieve nothing

As the Russian military operation in Ukraine continues to deepen, casualties are rising on both sides. The conflict has so far resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and about 2.5 million Ukrainian have left their country, according to the United Nations, and the humanitarian crisis continues to grow. Though the wave of condemnation of Russia by the West is growing, none of them is willing to help the wrestling parties calm down and cease fire.

The Western media has bombarded the public with sensational and even fabricated news and battlefield scenes, but none has offered explanations over the real causes of the war. The media has portrayed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero and Ukraine the only victim of the conflict, and demonized Russia as an evil "invader". In order to mislead viewers, Radio France Internationale used a photo of Zelensky visiting the eastern border of Ukraine in military uniform in the face of Russian aggression. However, it was proved that the photo was actually taken a few years ago.

US President Joe Biden claimed that the attack on Ukraine was definitely an "unprovoked and unjustified attack." But he did not mention the fact that it was NATO that promised Ukraine the membership and pushed the front line to the door of Russia, threatening its national security. As John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago, said in an open lecture that he believed "all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO." The immediate trigger is that Zelensky approved the Azov Battalion, a military organization in the Donbass region, to persecute the civilians in Donbass with extreme cruelty. These actions, therefore, directly led to the military actions of Russia against Ukraine.

We have a saying in Chinese: "When something goes wrong, there must be a demon." As the world's peace-loving people are calling for ceasefire, the US government is making full use of Russia's military actions instead, and encouraging its allies to add more fuel to the fire by supplying destructive weapons to Ukraine. At the NATO summit in Brussels this March, Biden said that since he became president, the United States has committed more than $2 billion in military equipment to Ukraine, and now the air defense systems, anti-armor systems, ammunition and weapons are flowing into Ukraine. He also appealed to his European allies to support Ukraine in its defense.

Obviously, it is a war engineered by the US, whose aim is to encourage Ukraine to start a manageable and limited war, and kill three birds with one stone: to force the European capital flow back to the US stock market, to strengthen US' leadership in NATO, and to embarrass China to take side between Russia and Ukraine, knowing that choosing either side would hurt China's national interest. The biggest beneficiary of the war is US, not Europe, but the latter, however, has to pay a heavy price for it. By creating a permanent tension in Europe, Europe would be subjected to US domination of Europe.

US ambition does not stop there. China is also the target of US in Russia-Ukraine war. By pretending to stand on the "moral high ground", the US could achieve it calculation: as a traditional friend and neighbor of Russia, if China condemned Russia, it would alienate it; if China chose to stand with Russia, it would hurt the image of China in the world. To US' disappointment, China, as a responsible country, has chosen to stand on the side of justice and morality and avoided the trap laid by the US. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken threatened that China would be held accountable for any action it takes in support of Russian aggression. Reuters quoted Blinken as saying that China had a responsibility to use its influence on Putin to defend international rules, but Beijing appeared to be "moving in the opposite direction". However, Washington offered no evidence that China had expressed a willingness to help Russia.

Since the very beginning, the Chinese government has been calling for restraint from both sides, and has offered humanitarian aid to Ukraine. After the first batch of humanitarian aid worth 10 million yuan to Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Sunday that the Chinese government has decided to provide another batch of humanitarian aid worth of 10 million yuan to Ukraine, and China will continue to play a constructive role in easing the situation in Ukraine and is willing to take its own efforts to overcome the humanitarian crisis.

At the same time, China has explicitly condemned the deeds of some Western countries that are calling for a halt in the fighting publicly while providing weapons to Ukraine behind the scenes. Such duplicity does nothing good but escalates the scale of war and humanitarian crisis. Unfortunately, the British government decided to provide Ukraine with 6,000 anti-tank missiles and anti-personnel demolition systems, as well as 25 million pounds in military aid. As expected, the sanctions initiated by the US and its allies failed to pressure Russian economy to crash, and the idea of paralyzing a power like Russia once for all is even naive and crazy.

As expected, these sanctions have backfired. The natural gas prices in Europe and US has skyrocketed, American public rancor is mounting and their anger is hard to be calmed down, deep rooted domestic problems are still ignored, partisanship is intensifying. European allies are forced to dream different dreams. Self-induced dollars crisis is deepening. BRICS countries are choosing to get closer for security.

Against this background, what Western countries should do to show their real concern to the conflict should see Russia's security anxiety from their perspective, and evaluate the potential toll if the war escalates. As the behind-door manipulator of the war, the US should stop thinking the world in the Cold War mentality, stop engaging in any activities that may obstruct normal communication and negotiations between warring sides. Most important, US politicians should reflect on the mess they have made all over the world in the past decades, especially the humanitarian disaster they have caused in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan, and becoming a responsible and credible superpower is only the choice for a better world.

After all, a peaceful and stable world is to everyone's interest, for the world has already suffered a lot from the pandemic and bigger challenges such as the global warming are waiting for us ahead. Human being have to bear in their mind that wars bring us nothing but more hatred and wars as history has already proved.

Zhao Momo is a student at Dalian Minzu University and Guo Jiulin is a professor at the same university.

The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.

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