Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

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The Russia-Ukraine crisis is exposing the deep-rooted hypocrisy and self-centeredness of the West. The West has launched a campaign to show solidarity with Ukraine. The slogans of sovereignty, human rights and a rule-based global system are back in business. The West is trying to act as a staunch protector of values, human rights and sovereignty.

It is engaged in skillfully crafting a campaign and a narrative, which suits its geo-political and geo-economic agenda. The Western elites use media to spread their message and the media is showing great enthusiasm to act on behalf of them. Simultaneously, Russian media outlets and news agencies are being banned to kill any chance of difference of opinion, so that they can manipulate their citizens according to their own preferences.

The West itself committed many crimes, starting from colonization to modern days' economic sanctioning. The West attacked countries like Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and looted their resources.

The most obscure part of the campaign on the Russia-Ukraine crisis is that it is targeting China for nothing.

As we know, China is not part of the conflict and is trying to diffuse the situation. Unfortunately, Western countries are not ready to accept this fact and are busy building a smear campaign against China.

The situation triggered consensus among the larger community of independent experts that the real purpose of the West is to keep their hegemony alive. So, the West is trying to use the Russia-Ukraine crisis to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, the West wants to isolate Russia and destroy its economy. On the other, they are trying to frame China as an ally of Russia to build a narrative against it. It is not new to China, as China is a victim of Western harsh behavior since its independence.

First, the West took many years to establish diplomatic relations with China. Second, the West is continuously violating the sovereignty of China. The most prominent example is Taiwan question. The Western countries are neither respecting the sovereignty of China over Taiwan island nor adhering to the one-China principle. The governments there are trying to establish Taiwan island as a separate country.

They are also selling arms to separatists and promoting local trouble-makers against the Chinese mainland. Now the West is irritating China by equating the situation of Ukraine with Taiwan island, which has no rationale, as we know Taiwan has been an integral part of China since ancient times. 

In this context, it can be inferred the campaign against China has no rationale. China, as an independent and sovereign country, has the right to adopt any policy which can help diffuse tension and bring peace back.

Regrettably, the West is not ready to accept this. The reasons are obvious. Western countries want to check the peaceful rise of China by erecting hurdles. It is a well-known fact the West does not like rising of China, especially the Chinese model of development, as China is developing by sheer hard work and sticking to the global norms. It is completely opposite to the Western model of development, which was based on colonization and committing genocides to secure resources.

So, by creating hurdles or framing China with Russia, the West wants to create a bad image of China and engage it in the conflict. Fortunately, China is not falling into the trap. Beijing is keeping a distance from the conflict and asking the parties to solve the issues through dialogue and consultations.

The author is chief executive officer at Asian Institute of Eco-civilisation Research and Development. Opinion@globaltimes.com.cn