The US starts playing the victim card as China asserts itself in Asia

While several countries of the world have suffered due to the US’s military aggression, which killed millions in Korea, Vietnam, Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Syria and Libya, among others, in the last seven decades, Washington DC has suddenly started playing the victim card in a fast-changing world where its hegemony is waning and it’s failing to bully smaller countries.

Recently, to portray itself as a victim, the US Navy has released a video of the Taiwan Strait, where a warship of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) was found nearly hitting an American destroyer. The US called it an “unsafe” manoeuvre by the PLA-N.

This incident took place on Saturday, June 3rd, during a joint naval exercise by the US and the Canadian Navy at the Taiwan Strait. The US Navy’s USS Chung-Hoon and the Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting the so-called “freedom of navigation” transit between China and its breakaway island called ‘Taiwan’.

The Chinese PLA-N ship, Luyang-III, is seen cutting sharply across the path of the US destroyer, forcing the latter to slow down. The Chinese ship then changed its direction and continued sailing on a parallel course with the USS Chung-Hoon.

This frightened the US, which was conducting a naval exercise far away from its territory, in Asia, with an apparent intent to bully China and deny its claim on ‘Taiwan’, which, ironically, the US accepts as a part of the mainland.

Chinese PLA’s Senior Colonel Shi Yi blamed the US and Canada for stirring trouble in its neighbourhood. He pointed out that these countries are deliberately stoking tension in the Taiwan Strait and maliciously undermining the peace and stability of the region. He also accused the US and Canada of sending wrong signals to the so-called “Taiwan independence” forces.

The so-called “Indo-Pacific”, ie, the region between the Pacific Ocean in the far-east and the Indian Ocean, has become a focal point for the US, as it’s attempting hard to militarily encircle China and retain its hegemony on the region and the semi-conductor supply chain from ‘Taiwan’.

Soon after the incident, on Sunday, the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said in Singapore that the “Indo-Pacific” is the US military’s principal focus area. Why is the area, which isn’t in its neighbourhood or shares any border with the US its focus area? The reason obviously is to deter China and curb its growing influence in the world.

However, why wouldn’t China have the right to protect its sovereignty by strengthening its military presence in the area near its borders where the most dangerous and heavily armed US military is focusing is a question that the Pentagon or Austin won’t answer.

Still, Austin complained of China’s “coercive behaviour” in the waterways of the region, while obliterating the fact that the US wouldn’t have allowed China to hold any such naval drill near its coastal regions and would have acted hysterically if a PLA-N ship was spotted in its vicinity.

Then why should the US have all the fun? Why should it have the freedom to deploy its destroyers anywhere in the world, while calling others—who haven’t killed millions in foreign territories to oust a government— threats?

To further counter the US and its aggression, the Chinese and the Russians have joined hands to dominate the aerial route over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. On Tuesday, June 6th, both countries, as part of the China-Russia annual military cooperation schedule, conducted their sixth joint aerial strategic aerial patrol in the airspace, raising the blood pressure of the US-led western bloc and Japan.

If the US intends to have a peaceful world order, it should refrain from poking its nose in each nook and corner of the world and learn what’s called ‘sovereignty’. So far, under the right to protect its interests, the US had been launching one after another war throughout the world.

With most countries of the world, especially after the US started its proxy war with Russia using Ukraine as a pawn, having started vocally advocating for a multipolar world order, the White House and the Pentagon are reacting like lunatics. Knowing well that its massive military budget and warmongering won’t earn it any leverage in the fast-changing world, it has now changed into the attire of a peace-loving monk to deceive the world.

Only time can show whether the US’s new strategy of playing the victim card will help it in gaining any of its lost territories. However, what’s clear from its manoeuvring is that it’s scared of the global demand for a multipolar world. To protect its hegemony, it can go to any extent, and history bears testimony to this fact.