So-called rules-based international order preached by U.S. officials totally nonsense

By Kong Jun, People’s Daily

U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ford, have been vowing to establish “rules-based international order” in recent days while they keep slandering China.

It is known to all that the core of international order is the modern international law system based on the Charter of the United Nations. Since the end of the World War II, the system, jointly established by the international society, has been serving as a basis to safeguard global peace and stability, and promote common development of all countries. It deserves to be cherished and protected.

However, what has the U.S. done to this system that it had once actively promoted?

As early as 2001, the U.S. had withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, reversing the process of U.S.-Soviet Union/Russia bilateral nuclear disarmament. It placed severe negative impacts on global peace and stability.

In recent years, Washington has been leaning to unilateralism, quitting and withdrawing from more and more treaties and organizations.

The U.S. unilaterally quit the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that it once promoted to reach and was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231. In addition to denying the treaty itself, the U.S.  obstructed the implementation by other signatories via unilateral sanction and its long-arm jurisdiction.

The U.S. and Russia, as the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, are specifically responsible for nuclear disarmament, and they should further reduce the number of their nuclear weapons based on the implementation of the existing Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (SART), so as to encourage other countries to follow.

However, disregarding the whole world, Washington just tore apart the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty reached between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1987, recovering the research and tests of land-based intermediate-range missiles and declaring to deploy such weapons in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Reluctant to extend the SART, the U.S. proposed the so-called China-U.S.-Russia trilateral arms control negotiations, trying to duck responsibilities and pass the buck to China.

Facing increasing nuclear risks, China is actively calling on the five nuclear-weapon states to reiterate the important idea – “nuclear wars can never be won and must never be fought” which was jointly raised by former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. However, as the country who put forward the idea, the U.S. now refuses to reiterate it.

As a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the U.S. should have actively promoted the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction based on the consensus reached on the 1995 review conference of the treaty. However, the U.S. has always been negative in this regard, and even refused to join the related international conference summoned by the United Nations not long ago.

On the Palestine-Israel situation, the U.S. once supported the “two-state solution” on the basis of the 1967 borders to be the only correct scheme to solve the issues between the two countries. The “two-state solution” was also confirmed by the resolution of the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly. However, Washington just had a u-turn and the U.S. administration just went back on its word.

Besides, the White House also announced to drop out of the Arms Trade Treaty during this year’s United Nations General Assembly. It declared the U.S. would never approve the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and said it was planning on the withdrawal from the Treaty on Open Skies that it has implemented for years with Russia.

International security treaties and organizations are not the only sector that the U.S. is abandoning. Washington has also quit other major international mechanisms such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Paris Agreement. Such practices have long been despised by the international community.

In addition, the U.S. blockade of the new judges appointed by the Appellate Body of the WTO over the years even paralyzed the organization.

As a matter of fact, the U.S. is not only undermining the existing international consensuses, but also doing everything to stop new international rules and systems from being established.

For instance, it voted 21 against and 6 abstensions out of the 60 resolutions in this year’s First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) of the United Nations General Assembly, totally standing at the opposite of the international society.

When it comes to the uses of outer space, which is closely related to the welfare of all human beings as well as global peace and security, the U.S. has long neglected the appeal of the international society, and rejected to initiate the negotiation of international treaties on the prevention of arms race in outer space. It also prevented relevant UN panels’ approval of work reports.

The above facts fully prove that the U.S. is no longer an active constructor of and contributor to international governance system, but a genuine revisionist country as it stubbornly insists the “America first” policy, is self-centered in international affairs and constantly withdraws from treaties and organizations.

Such a U.S. is never qualified to be an establisher of the “rules-based international order”. Even though it could make new rules, to what extent will it obey them, and who would really believe such a U.S. is able to obey them?

A just cause enjoys abundant support while an unjust cause finds little. Certainly these practices of the U.S. have received protests and opposition from the international society. However, the protests and opposition failed to trigger introspection of the U.S., who, on the contrary, schemes to organize “cliquey” groups and makes its so-called rules exclusively with its partners. Through its hegemony in military, finance and technology, it exerts its own wills on the international society.

In May, the U.S. initiated the so-called 5G Security Conference in Prague, Czech, and issued the Prague Proposals. This meeting was joined by only a few countries, and rejected the participation of China. Ever since, U.S. officials started selling this so-called rules, requesting other countries to ban the devices manufactured by China’s tech firm Huawei.

Such evil intention is obvious to all. The so-called rules of the U.S. are just a tool to seek private gains and maintain hegemony.

Those who conform to the trend of history prosper and those who go against it fade. History has proven, and will prove once again that those who go against the trend of time, undermine international order, and prevent global peace and development won’t end up well, and will finally enter the “hall of shame” of history.

It’s time for the U.S. officials to stop their preaching on the so-called “rules-based international order”.