Lloyd Austin Photo: AFP

By smearing China and sowing discord between it and other countries, US politicians often undisguisedly show their desire to continue US hegemony. 

Delivering a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed that his country will not let China reshape "its region and the international order." He also added that the next few years will "shape the future of security in Europe."

To be fair, Austin's remarks sound quite trite, as they reflect the view the US has constantly shown toward China - portraying the latter as the former's "most consequential geopolitical challenge," as mentioned in this year's US National Security Strategy.

However, it is worth noting that Austin has mentioned six times in his Saturday speech the phrase "decisive decade" - a term US President Joe Biden used to describe the coming 10 years in the China-US rivalry. This demonstrates how desperate and urgent Washington feels to contain China before it's too late.

The US has long been shaping China's neighborhood and instigating frictions and disputes between China and its neighbors to portray China as a so-called challenger to the regional and global system. It has repeatedly emphasized this point on multiple bilateral and multilateral occasions in different regions, trying to reinforce the perception of China that it wants to impose on other countries. 

But US politicians' criticism of China's "growing will and power to reshape its region and the international order" is just an excuse to justify Washington's attempts to maintain its dominance in the world. In fact, the "order" that the US talks about is its hegemony.

In its logic, Washington believes a country will always seek hegemony once it grows stronger. It is projecting such a logic precisely onto China, a peaceful country, and considering that a more assertive China will threaten its dominant position in the world. At the same time, the US has tried to rope in its allies, with even coercion sometimes.

Nevertheless, as the gap in power between China and the US narrows further and US allies become increasingly unwilling to follow the US blindly, Washington's wishful thinking will only become increasingly difficult to realize. And the reason the US is so eager to keep promoting the "China threat" theory is that it cannot halt the trend of its decline.

The "justice fighter" banner the US carries to gain support from its allies and partners has been knocked down by reality repeatedly. More countries are now starting to realize that the so-called global order is solely a product of US global dominance to safeguard US interests.

For instance, in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Washington urges Europe to suppress Russia constantly and, on the other hand, launches a vicious competition to worsen the European economy. As a result, US' credibility with its allies and the international community continues to collapse, and so does its hegemony that disguises itself as a "rules-based international order."

If the coming decade should be decisive for something, it should be about smashing Washington's brutal hegemony and establishing true world equality and justice. A true international order should put the UN Charter at its core and pursue the goal of building a human community with a shared future, rather than the one based on Washington's long-arm jurisdiction.