US hegemony Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

"American officials quite naturally tend to act as if the world were unipolar. They boast of American power and American virtue, hailing the US as a benevolent hegemon... While the US regularly denounces various countries as 'rogue states,' in the eyes of many countries it is becoming the rogue superpower," wrote US political scientist Samuel P. Huntington in his 1999 article "The Lonely Superpower."

The recent remarks US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made reaffirm the argument in Huntington's article that the US is an out-and-out rogue hegemon. Asked about the billions of dollars provided to Ukraine in a CBS television interview aired Friday, the US politician answered, "viscerally most Americans don't like to see a big country bullying another [country], and they just feel it's wrong and want to do something about it."

Blinken claimed that Americans don't like the "BBC" - not the British one, but a "big bullying country." But in what position is the US, as the world's biggest bully, to say so?

From the Middle East to Southeast Asia, from Latin America to Europe, in which continent has the US not left its footprint of bullying other countries? From invading sovereign countries to provoking "color revolutions," from abusing unilateral sanctions to launching technological containment, which one of these moves is not a bullying means of Washington?

To most people, it sounds ridiculous for the US to criticize "big country bullying," which ironically makes it seem as if Blinken is throwing shade at his own country.

It is either ignorant or shameless for US political elites to say such words without bashing the US. If it is the former, we suggest that these politicians learn more history, especially US history, to see who the greatest "role model" of "big country bullying" is. If it's the latter, we must be amazed at these people's exceptional ability to play dumb without feeling ashamed.

At the end of the day, US' bullying practices are inseparable from its hegemonic position: Hegemony is why Washington can be so brazenly and overbearingly in the world, and bullying aims at maintaining US global dominance. What a hegemon wants is the power to arbitrarily interfere in other nations' sovereignty and internal affairs and push for extreme suppression against any country that may threaten it.

Bullying has been in the blood of the US since the country's founding. History has manifested that US' bullying targets not only its rivals and opponents, but also its allies and partners that appeared to be "disobedient." It turns out that the US does not believe in any other country, but only in its own strength.

In Washington's view, all land under heaven is its territory, so it has to act as a global sheriff. However, while playing power politics as a global hegemon, the US pretends to be a vigilante against the "bullying behaviors" of other major powers. Such hypocrisy is a big slap in Washington's face.
Of course, even knowing their country's bullying history, US politicians like Blinken will never admit that the US is a big bully. They have to make all efforts to justify Washington's behaviors, maintain its "righteous" image, and prove to the world that US hegemony is needed. This is their job and part of the US national strategy.

Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the US to maintain its global hegemony with its diluted strengths. The country now has to sugarcoat its hegemony as a Western hegemony with the US at its core and use values to rope in allies in the West. On multilateral occasions, it practices a fake multilateralism under the banner of upholding the "rules-based international order," the essence of which is still to safeguard US interests.

"Most of the world, as [former president of South Africa] Mandela said, does not want the US to be its policeman," said Huntington in "The Lonely Superpower." This still applies to today's world, not to mention that the US has now completely degenerated into a rogue hegemon. Time and again, Washington and US politicians have made themselves untrustworthy to the majority of the world by their selfishness.

As a result, US' words have become less persuasive, and the country is gradually isolating itself in the world. As Huntington argued, "In acting as if this were a unipolar world, the US is also becoming increasingly alone." Sadly, this is the reality of today's US.