The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued on Sunday a factsheet on "Falsehoods in US Perceptions of China," laying out a total of 21 points with detailed facts and figures concerning all-round topics that emerged between the two countries, including US claims over democracy, human rights and the Indo-Pacific, and China's stance on the Taiwan question, Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

The factsheet came in response to a recent speech delivered by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Asia Society which outlined the US administration's approach to China. "With carefully calibrated language, he sought to promote the 'China threat' narrative, interfere in China's internal affairs, and smear China's domestic and foreign policy, all in an attempt at full-blown containment and suppression of China," said the Ministry.

Regarding the world order, it said that what the US has constantly vowed to preserve is a so-called international order designed to serve its own interests and perpetuate its hegemony. The US itself is the largest source of disruption to the actual world order, it remarked.

The US has blasted unilateral sanctions over the years on Cuba, Iran, Belarus and Syria, among other nations, and ramped up "maximum pressure" against countries like the DPRK and Venezuela. As the numbers show, the Trump administration imposed over 3,900 sanction measures, which means that it wielded its "big stick" three times a day on average. As of fiscal year 2021, the entities and individuals on US sanction lists topped 9,421, a 933 percent higher compared to the fiscal year 2000, according to the factsheet.

The "rules-based international order" championed by the US is in fact another version of power politics. This is an attempt to impose one's own will and standards on others and replace commonly accepted international laws and norms with the house rules of a few countries.

While claiming that it is not looking for conflict or a new Cold War, the US has been deploying its domestic and external resources to unscrupulously contain and suppress China, the ministry said.

"Clinging to a Cold War mentality and the hegemon's logic, the US pursues bloc politics, concocts the 'democracy versus authoritarianism' narrative, cajoles other countries into forming exclusive cliques, strengthens the Five Eyes, peddles the Quad mechanism, puts together the AUKUS with the UK and Australia and ramps up bilateral military alliances in a clear attempt at countering China," it noted.

On democracy, the US sets its own standards and does not allow other systems to exist, ganging up to wantonly interfere in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of democracy.

Take the US National Rifle Association (NRA) as an example. The association, with 5 million members, is an important sponsor of the Republican Party, and its tentacles penetrate deep into the fabric of the American society, the factsheet said. Since its establishment in 1871, the NRA has successfully attracted nine US presidents to join it. In the face of huge profits, all kinds of gun control efforts have ended up in vain.

The US is the country with most rampant gun violence. Its 333 million population, owns more than 400 million guns or 46 percent of all the private guns in the world. It tops the world in terms of gun ownership and shooting incidents every now and then in the US takes away more than 110 lives on a daily average.

On the Taiwan question, the US has "acted faithlessly, kept regressing from its own commitments and the consensus it reached with China, and attempted to weaken and undermine the one-China principle," said the ministry.

On the political front, the US has added the so-called "Taiwan Relations Act" and the "Six Assurances" to the expression of its one-China policy, which were unilaterally made by the US side. "They are illegal, null and void from the very beginning and China has never acknowledged and has firmly rejected them from the outset."

In the military field, instead of ceasing the arms sales, the US has sold weapons at a larger scale and with enhanced capability including assault weaponries such as anti-radiation missiles, heavy weight torpedoes, and F-16V fighter jets. To date, the total amount of US arms sales to Taiwan has exceeded $70 billion.

Since 2021, the US leader has stated publicly on three occasions that the US would help defend the island of Taiwan in case of a war in the Taiwan Straits.

The factsheet also elaborated on the situation in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, slamming US' false claims that served only as tools to discredit and attack China, including so-called "genocide" in Xinjiang and "anti-democratic measures" in Hong Kong.

Listing a total of 21 points of falsehoods in US perception of China, the factsheet also included the US coercive diplomacy, its false depiction of China's stance on the Ukraine issue, the US' Indo-Pacific strategy, China's maritime rights, disinformation, trade frictions and climate among other topics.

Global Times