US Ukraine crisis Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

 Recent rhetoric by American officials vividly comes across as grandstanding or being hopelessly arrogant. In the case of Russia-Ukraine conflict, after the US acknowledged there is no evidence that China has sent lethal military support to Russia after days of relevant sensational hypes, Washington turned its spears against China's neutral stance again. US National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby made a blatant call: China should satisfy the US' needs to support Ukraine in its self-defense. 

In a recent interview, Kirby said that "we would be happy to see steps from China to help Ukraine in terms of their self-defense," Sputnik News reported on Saturday. 

This is unreasonable logic. If Kirby wants to talk about "self-defense," it might as well offer some assistance to Russia for self-defense in real sense against NATO's provocative eastward expansion. 

Kirby is not calling on China to support Ukraine's self-defense. He is inciting China to change its neutral stance toward the conflict, and to join the US to fan the flames. It shows the US is determined to protract the war to the end, Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times. 

On the other hand, the US is well aware that China will not change its stance, but it appeals so anyway. This is simply another US trick to shift blame on China for the ongoing crisis. After the US provoked the war, it wants China to bear the consequences. 

China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis, released on February 24, illustrated crystal clear China's stance and suggestion for seeking a way out of this conflict. The US turned a cold eye to it. Worse, it has been smearing and undermining China's efforts for peace. Because peace in Ukraine in not in US interests. That's why it would rather turn the region into a "meat grinder."

For the moment, the situation in Bakhmut dominates the front pages of world section in major Western mainstream media. Russian forces are to close their encirclement around the city. Some observers believe Russia seems to be having the upper hand on the battlefield. It's a matter of time before Russia takes the city and Ukraine is caught in a passive situation, Yang said. 

As long as the US believes that Ukraine can provide soldiers to die, Washington will keep this war going. Because the longer the conflict goes on, Russia will continue to bleed, European countries will be more reliant on the US for security and NATO will maintain its unity.

At the end of the day, the conflict is not about a fight over territory or political systems. The US wants more than simply squeezing Russia's strategic space. It wants to completely trap Russia in terms of security. It wants to establish a new order of European security, an order that is completely controlled by the US-led West, according to Yang.

For the current US administration, there can only be one outcome to this war - Russian defeat or compromise. Washington simply won't accept other scenarios. But this is exactly where the US has miscalculated. "In a conventional war, the moment when a nuclear power is forced into a desperate corner, is the moment when the conventional battlefield escalates into a nuclear one," Yang said. 

However, American arrogance has hindered Washington from seeing the reality. 

This arrogance permeates in every detail of US words and deeds: Kirby believes that the US is entitled to tell China what the latter should and should not do, including whether to remain neutral when facing a conflict. 

The US is not only showing this arrogance toward China, but its allies as well. Since the US does not like Germany getting too close to Russia, Washington has many times voiced its opposition against Nord Stream 2 pipeline program. Biden even articulated, "there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2." 

The US may have highly likely delivered this promise, as American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dug out: the only suspect in Nord Stream sabotage is the US. 

In particular, regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US is gambling. It is throwing out a boomerang in the hope of heavily hitting Russia. However, it should be careful, because the boomerang can come back and harm the US itself.