On January 6, a loud pop was heard at the U.S. Capitol, but it wasn't celebratory New Year's fireworks, it was a gunshot from inside a riot. Thousands of Americans rushed into the Capitol because of their dissatisfaction with the presidential election result. Chaotic and furious, the riot may have been reminiscent, in the eyes of some, of what Speaker Nancy Pelosi once said of previous disturbances in Hong Kong as being "a beautiful sight to behold."

Faced with the same situation, Uncle Sam took a completely different attitude:

After taking office, Joe Biden perpetuated most of his predecessor's "legacy" on confronting China. Moreover, he kept hyping Hong Kong, smearing Xinjiang, instigating "Taiwan independence" and pushing the COVID-19 lab-leak conspiracy theory.

Envious of Hong Kong's stability and prosperity after the national security law came into effect, the U.S. sanctioned the city under some lame pretext.

It repeatedly claimed that there's so-called "genocide" and "forced labor" in Xinjiang, but never showed any evidence, which is only cheap political theater by the "master" of smearing.

Furthermore, the U.S. government doubled down on the perilous game of "Taiwan independence" by accelerating arms sales to the region and encouraging it to join the UN system, while claiming support for the "one-China policy." The U.S. is patently duplicitous!

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Western politicians led by the U.S. government haven't stopped hyping the origins tracing of the coronavirus, and go so far as to willfully misinterpret the words of World Health Organization experts to distort the facts.

The Biden administration even ordered its intelligence community to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. Was the U.S. government serious about letting spies do the work of scientists?

When COVID-19 origins tracing turned into a political game, China became America's only target.

Apart from being mired in confrontation with China, the U.S. was also caught up with racism and human rights issues domestically. In 2021, the number of hate crimes against Asian-Americans rose sharply, the brutal mass deportation drive against border refugees gained steam, and worsening gun violence alarmed the international community.

Scenes of refugees being whipped were reminiscent of episodes in U.S. history when slave owners whipped their Black slaves.

As gun-related violence skyrocketed, the American public felt increasingly insecure. Gun violence became an epidemic within the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even the U.S. has done an underwhelming job in responding to COVID-19. Yet with nearly a million deaths, it's still bragging about its masterful handling of the pandemic.

The U.S. is also keen to export its democracy and human rights values to the rest of the world, regardless of its own poor records, the massive humanitarian disasters it has caused, and the lack of transferability to other countries' specific sociopolitical contexts.

On September 11 this year, U.S. troops haphazardly and disastrously evacuated from Afghanistan, devastating a country in desperate need of reconstruction.

The day also marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11. However, after 20 years of the U.S. war on terror, the number of terrorist groups in Afghanistan has only grown. Biden once bragged that "America is back!" If that's true, did he mean to "square one"?

The U.S. is also obsessed with building cliques, despite sometimes stabbing its own partners in the back.

The so-called Summit for Democracy hosted by the U.S. this month was more like a summit to divide the globe and the result of building cliques. Thankfully, many countries saw through this charade.

Looking back at what the U.S. has done, it's not difficult to see that in this hectic year, America has only taken huge steps back on democracy and human rights. As 2021 comes to an end, we sincerely hope that Uncle Sam will cut the bluster and start doing more for the world.

Credits: 

Editor: Yuan Xin

Illustrators: Wang Shiqi, Cao Yi

Senior producer: Wei Wei 

Managing director: Mei Yan

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