The hopeless fault-finder Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

It's often a marvel to see the Western media's capability to fabricate lies and hurl mud at China. Bloomberg, citing anonymous officials, recently accused China of "providing Russia with significant quantities of components to build cruise missiles and drones as well as optical parts for tanks and armored vehicles."

The report, published on Saturday, claimed that "while there is no evidence China is providing lethal assistance, people familiar with the US intelligence assessment characterized the aid as just as significant, saying that without the imports, Russia's military industrial base would struggle."

The theory of "Chinese components found in Russian weapons," or "China secretly sends [military] gear to Russia" has been repeatedly hyped up by Western media outlets since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, upon closer examination of all the stories and quotes, no solid evidence can be found to support these claims.

Ignoring the fact that the components they normally talk about are typically civilian products circulating in the international market, American media outlets fail to specify the exact equipment models that are allegedly exported from China to Russia, or how they are utilized by the Russian military in combat situations. Instead, they continue to assert that Russia is receiving military support from China without providing concrete evidence to support this assertion.
 
Take a look at the enterprises Bloomberg listed this time, such as Wuhan Global Sensor Technology Co. and Hikvision. Their products are mostly used in the fields of thermography, firefighting and rescue, intelligent driving, road traffic, network and data processing, and video monitoring. Without proof, US media insists those products, which are widely used in civilian, traffic and medical sectors, are exported for missiles and tanks. This is like alleging that a frozen carrot can be used as a deadly weapon. 

The logic reminds us of other US claims, such as Chinese garlic posing a threat to US national security, the "Washing powder" excuse being a prelude to US-led Iraq War, as well as US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's rhetoric about the Russian military taking chips from dishwashers and refrigerators to fix their military hardware.

Given such a cognitive level, how can the US come up with anything serious? When the US smears China about providing military components to Russia, its aim is quite obvious. First, blame China for the failure to defeat Russia on the battlefield, finding excuses for the prolonged conflict. It believes Russia should have been brought to its knees long ago, but why not? It must be China's fault. Second, as long as the US wants to sanction Chinese companies, it can choreograph whatever convenient excuse it needs. When Chinese electric vehicles were the target, the US made up the excuse "overcapacity." When Washington wants to target certain Chinese high-tech companies, it can conveniently come up with the label of helping Russia to ramp up military production, Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times. 

The words and actions of the US have shown that it is completely unreasonable and will resort to any means, with any excuses, to contain China.

When Western media target China and pressure China not to provide lethal military assistance to Russia, they are trying to push the "China's special responsibility theory" in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, China's "active neutrality" stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict will stand the test of history. 

The practices of China and the US are qualitatively different. When facing regional conflicts, China will never proactively provide weapons to any parties concerned. In contrast, the US constantly sends heavy weapons to the Ukrainian battlefield but still cannot win the proxy war. Instead of reflecting on its own issues, all it does is look for someone to blame. This only proves incompetence.