Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

 "Downplaying COVID-19," "inability in coronavirus fight," and "ducking responsibilities on others" have become the footnote of the West in 2020. 

When people look back to 2020, they would find that one of the most unforgettable historical memories of the year is the West's image of a loser who vented its anger on others for the collapse of its confidence in the Western-style system.

This has been repeatedly confirmed in the West's moves that continuously create antagonism and portrays China as their enemy and threat. 

A China handbook titled "China vs. Democracy: The Greatest Game" was issued at the annual Halifax Security Forum held virtually from Friday to Sunday in Halifax, Canada. In the handbook's foreword, Peter Van Praagh, the forum's founder and president, wrote, "The 2020 paradigm shift in people's attitudes toward China was a concrete change from the old conventional wisdom that an economically vibrant China would progress toward more freedom for its people, to the new conventional wisdom that the Chinese Communist Party is, in fact, the virus that endangers the world." 

Praagh sees the handbook as a contribution to building a "necessary common understanding" of "what confronts the democratic community of nations" and "what to do with regard to China." To achieve this goal, the forum prepared the handbook through conversations with more than 250 experts from around the world - but unsurprisingly, no expert who can represent the Chinese mainland's voice was included. Such a seemingly detailed appraisal is another tool for the Western camp to highlight their presupposed conclusion that China is a so-called threat to the democracies. 

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has led China to a prosperous path, bringing more welfare and freedom to the Chinese people. But the Western world has always refused to admit this. In their deep-rooted prejudice or what they call "old conventional wisdom," China should always be a vassal to the West, who contributes to the West's prosperity by being no more than a low-end world factory, a provider of raw materials, and a source of cheap labor. Only in this way would China's ruling party be fully accepted by the West. 

However, led by the CPC, China has become the world's second largest economy that doesn't need to take orders from the West. It is independent from the West's hegemonic control. Moreover, China has become a more dynamic and influential country that assumes more international responsibilities in the great trend of Western decline. This is the root cause why the West smears the CPC as "the virus that endangers the world."

COVID-19 has shown to the rest of world how the West is totally lost in the pandemic. The Western system has had its hands tied before the pandemic, and all the complacent Western elites can do to relieve themselves is to stigmatize the CPC. 

Whether Western countries want to admit it or not, the myth of their system is a delusion, and their confidence in the system that they are proud of has collapsed. Utterly discomfited, they target China to shift attention. 

Western elites are not necessarily unaware of this. But only when people deal with the truth of their problems might they find solutions. Courage is needed, but the cowardice of Western elites has prevented them from getting the determination to uproot their problems. With political interests as priority, they seek to impair China by further spreading the political virus. However, will they look more decent by putting on the emperor's new clothes?