Supporters of then U.S. President Donald Trump gather near the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States, Jan. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
What the two parties are debating in Congress has nothing to do with the real interests of the American people, who are increasingly upset with Washington's elite circles. Such issues as rampant gun violence, extensive racial discrimination, widening wealth gap, abortion rights, and soaring inflation remain far from being unsettled.
by Xinhua writer Dong Yue
BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- With the first hearing of the U.S. House committee on China around the corner, the panel members, as committee Chairman Mike Gallagher has said, "are really enthusiastic right now."
The U.S. lawmakers do have reasons to be ecstatic. Bogged in a bitter wrangle over pressing domestic issues, they have finally found easy prey to unhesitatingly pounce on.
As revealed by U.S. media, the witness list of the upcoming hearing includes security officials from the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump, some "human rights activists" and representatives from U.S. manufacturers. It is predictable that the gathering will trot out the old cliches against China in such areas as security, human rights protection and its fast development.
By orchestrating this anti-China show, the two parties run further into turning the fallacy that China poses a threat to America into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever China does will be interpreted by those politicians as aggression, reinforcing their misperception on China. Finally, a vicious circle will lead to a catastrophe on the world's most important bilateral ties.
In fact, as opposed to the narratives by Washington's China-bashers, the Chinese have always been a peace-loving people and staunch advocate of harmony and coexistence. Since its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China has never started a war, never occupied one inch of foreign land, never engaged in proxy wars and never participated in or organized any military bloc. It remains the only country in the world that has enshrined a path of peaceful development in its constitution.
Meanwhile, China is a major troop contributor and the second-largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, and has set up an 8,000-strong peacekeeping standby force. Last year, China proposed the Global Security Initiative, offering solutions to pressing security issues.
On human rights protection, regarding the rights to subsistence and development as primary basic human rights, China has over the past decades made unprecedented progress in its human rights cause. It has eliminated absolute poverty, best protected people's lives and health during the pandemic, established the world's largest social security and healthcare system, and advanced whole-process people's democracy.
For the whole world, including the United States, China's development presents an opportunity, not a challenge. China's development is to deliver better lives to the Chinese people, not to target anyone, still less replace anyone.
In China's view, development holds the key to solving many of the world's daunting problems. That is why it has pushed forward the Belt and Road cooperation and proposed the Global Development Initiative to expand global consensus on building a better world for all.
According to a World Bank forecast, if all Belt and Road transport infrastructure projects are carried out, the initiative would generate 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars of global revenues annually to 2030. Up to 90 percent of the revenues would go to partner countries.
Since its inception, the U.S. House committee on China has been boasted by politicians on both sides of the aisle as a symbol of bipartisan solidarity. But trumping up a common threat will not help cover up the two parties' inability to overcome their fundamental divergence to solve the problems facing Americans. The drama over the U.S. House speakership, which ended with Kevin McCarthy's winning after 15 rounds of voting, is clear testimony to how extremely polarized U.S. politics are.
U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy holds a press conference in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Feb. 2, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua)
More ironically, McCarthy, who had pleaded for bipartisan unity when introducing his idea on establishing the China committee, was recently reported to hand over a massive trove of internal government materials on the Capitol riot to a friendly media outlet of his party, triggering a new round of battle between Democrats and Republicans.
What the two parties are debating in Congress has nothing to do with the real interests of the American people, who are increasingly upset with Washington's elite circles. Such issues as rampant gun violence, extensive racial discrimination, widening wealth gap, abortion rights, and soaring inflation remain far from being unsettled.
By joining hands to establish the China committee, organize some hearings and foment fear about China's development, the so-called public servants are making believe that they are performing their duties.
For ordinary Americans, it must be disappointing. ■
