Chinese state media on Tuesday pounced on U.S. shipments of cluster munitions to Ukraine as proof the American-led “rules-based international order” is just a “mafia-style” hypocritical racket.
After a good deal of whining about the alleged hypocrisy of America giving China a hard time about brutal political repression, bloody massacres, forced labor, and genocide, the state-run Global Times pounced on the Biden administration for helping Ukraine commit prospective war crimes:
In February 2022, then White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the use of cluster bombs a “war crime.” A year later, the US altered its “rules” and decided to send these cluster bombs to Ukraine.
The rules-based order suppresses anything that challenges US hegemony, such as China’s rise. Consequently, the US believes it is “righteous” to impose unilateral sanctions or export controls on China. But when China introduced its own set of export control rules on gallium and germanium, Karin Jean-Pierre, a White House spokeswoman, accused China of exerting pressure through the economy, underlying it is not fair play.
#Opinion: What exactly is the rules-based order, the most frequently used term in US diplomacy? It is a dictatorial order, a mafia international order. It only proves that when the US brags about how democratic it is at home, it is pursuing authoritarianism abroad. @NuryVittachi… pic.twitter.com/OHqLrqDGvN
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 11, 2023
After losing the plot for a while by claiming the U.S. is somehow hypocritical for telling China not to seize Taiwan by force, the Global Times got back in the groove by pointing out that a sizable portion of “emerging countries” would rather have alternatives in a “multipolar world” than accept Washington “peddling its values and allies to bind its Western allies to its side.”
“The louder the U.S. is over the rules-based order, the more it proves the US is incapable of maintaining it. Otherwise, there is no need to talk about it all day long in such a high-profile manner,” the Chinese Communist editors sniffed.
Chinese propagandists have a tendency to haul out a huge list of grievances stretching back for years every time they spot an opportunity to score political points. The Global Times would have been better advised to stay focused on the cluster munitions issue, which is awkward for the Biden administration – although it is not technically illegal or a violation of the “rules-based order,” since the United States is not a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. China most certainly does not feel any obligation to follow treaties and conventions it never signed.
NEW: The U.S. has announced that it will send cluster munitions to Ukraine. The munitions will help Ukraine’s armed forces as they continue their counter-offensive, but they will not be a game changer, writes CSIS expert Mark F. Cancian.
Learn more: https://t.co/sRp1RwQRxn
— CSIS (@CSIS) July 10, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday argued that America giving cluster bombs to the Ukrainians would not make the situation appreciably worse, because Russia – which also has not signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions – is allegedly already using them.
“Every ally I’ve talked to has said they understand why we’re doing this when we’re doing it,” Blinken said, alluding to the fact that many of America’s NATO allies did sign the pledge not to use cluster munitions.
RELATED VIDEO — Blinken: Ukraine Would Have Been “Defenseless” Without U.S. Cluster Bombs:
Leaving aside the international legality of their use, most of the U.S. media was appalled by cluster bombs until this week, when they suddenly began cranking out editorials explaining why giving them to Ukraine was the right call. The Washington Post specifically chided “liberals” for getting squeamish over the alarming risk of civilian casualties from unexploded cluster bomb submunitions, which can lurk on battlefields for years until civilians stumble across them.
Blinken conceded that cluster munitions for Ukraine were necessary because the U.S. and its allies are running out of conventional artillery shells.
“The stockpiles around the world and in Ukraine of the unitary munitions, not the cluster munitions, were running low. They’re about to be depleted. The hard but necessary choice to give them the cluster munitions amounted to this: If we didn’t do it, we don’t do it, then they will run out of ammunition. If they run out of ammunition, they will be defenseless,” he said on Tuesday.
This would certainly be a massive media scandal under a Republican administration – “GOP President Authorizes War-Crime Weapons to Cover Trillion-Dollar Military’s Inexplicable Ammo Shortage,” the headlines would scream.
Instead, the Left has stopped worrying and learned to love the cluster bomb. Luckily, Chinese propagandists are too busy making their umteenth case for why hypocritical Americans should shut up about Uyghur slavery to pick on that particular hypocrisy.