Human rights just empty talk for US: China Daily editorial

The United States only pays lip service to human rights. When it comes to the crunch, it is pious words that are forthcoming not practical deeds.

This is exactly the case with regard to the refugees fleeing the fighting in Ukraine.

It goes without saying that Washington should not shirk its responsibility for the Ukrainian refugee crisis, given the role it has played in fomenting and fueling the conflict.

Yet it is the European Union countries that are bearing the brunt of the refugee burden.

US President Joe Biden has said that the US will welcome 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. But even if it does that, it is not much help to EU countries which have to care for millions of Ukrainian refugees.

That politicians in the US have been frequently talking about the refugee crisis may give the world the impression that they are quite concerned about the refugees and how such a crisis should be resolved. But it is all smoke and mirrors and crocodile tears.

It is the US that is directly responsible for many refugee crises worldwide thanks to its actions.

Its airstrikes lasting for 78 days against the Federation of Yugoslavia in 1999, which resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 civilians, also displaced nearly 1 million people.

Washington has launched at least eight wars since 2001 including its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is estimated that the total number of refugees as a result of these wars has been nearly 60 million.

Even before the exodus from Ukraine, there were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2019, according to the United Nations. Of these, 26 million were refugees, half under the age of 18. There were also 45.7 million internally displaced people, and millions of stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and freedom of movement.

And the growth in displacement today is far outstripping the solutions.

The politicians in Washington have never talked about any concrete actions the US might take to help mitigate these refugee crises. At the same time, they have never stopped pointing accusing fingers at other countries in the name of human rights.

This is because human rights are not what Washington is really concerned about. Instead, it is how to maintain the US' hegemony that is the only concern to politicians in Washington.

If it is in the interest of the US maintaining its hegemony, US politicians do not care what the consequences of its military action or economic sanctions will be for the people in the countries concerned.

Human rights are what Washington says to gain itself the moral high ground, while maintaining its global hegemony is its basic instinct.