Editor's note: Xin Ping is a commentator on international affairs who writes regularly for CGTN, Global Times and China Daily. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

For a long time, the U.S. has been keen to dress up as the bright and glamorous "beacon." And one of the most effective ways is to make and sell numerous lies to whitewash its failures, smear its enemies and mislead the public. It has literally become a "factory and dealer of lies," which not only exposes its hypocrisy, but also brings chaos to the world.

Lie No.1: The U.S. is a poster child in fighting COVID-19

The U.S. yelled at the top of its voice that it ranked first for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic while the incompetence of the U.S. government to tackle the virus is for all to see. Following the broken electoral promise to end the pandemic in 2021, the U.S. government has now taken a "lie-flat" approach and changed its tone to "coexist" with the virus. The U.S. death toll is heading toward the one million threshold. Up to now, there have been a total of 12.5 million confirmed cases of children in the U.S., according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

While messing up its own response to the pandemic, the U.S. is also making trouble for other countries around the world. According to a study of Tel Aviv University, about 70 percent of infected Israelis had a particular strain of the coronavirus that originated in the U.S. The New York Times published another grim news item that Johnson & Johnson quietly shut down the only plant making usable batches of its COVID-19 vaccine late last year, and switched to making an experimental but potentially more profitable vaccine to protect against an unrelated virus. 

"This is not the time to be switching production lines of anything, when the lives of people across the developing world hang in the balance," Dr Ayoade Alakija, a co-head of the African Union's vaccine-delivery program commented.

Lie No.2: The U.S. is a champion of democracy

The U.S. has repeatedly boasted of its own political system and touted its commitment to "democracy." That turns out to be a black irony as defined by the three big failures of U.S. democracy in 2021. The first one is the "Capitol riot on January 6" when violent attacks ripped off layers of band-aid on U.S. democracy all at once. According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 53 percent of Americans think it is either very likely or somewhat likely that there will be another attack like the January 6 riot. 

The second one is the "Fall of Kabul" in August when the hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops left the world with such bloody scenes as American soldiers shooting civilians and Afghan young men falling from a U.S. military airplane. The U.S. even robbed life-saving money from the Afghan people recently. And the third one is the "Summit for Democracy" in December, which ended hastily in waves of suspicion and criticism from the international community.

Lie No.3: The U.S. is an advocate of the free market

While claiming that it proudly protects the "fair, free, competitive market economy," the U.S. remains the leading culprit in undermining the market economy, free competition and globalization. The U.S. is still exercising protectionism and pressing ahead with the trade war against China. It is even suppressing foreign enterprises to maintain its own dominant position in commerce and technology. 

From Alstom of France to Toshiba and Toyota of Japan, to Huawei of China, companies in other countries have only two options if they aim for the peak of science and technology: being acquired and annexed or ruthlessly banned. Domestically, there is no longer any political power nowadays in the U.S. that is able to discipline capital and financial speculation, and the only thing Washington can do is to keep printing and borrowing money, and watching the National Debt Clock in Manhattan show astronomical numbers.

Lie No.4: The U.S. is the guardian of peace

Contrary to its pompous promises of maintaining peace in conflict zones, the U.S. is actually the most fatal threat to peace and stability on earth, inflicting millions of civilian casualties and untold damage and suffering. In its more than 240-year-long history, there have only been 16 years in which the U.S. was not at war. From the end of World War II to 2001, the U.S. has initiated 201 of the 248 armed conflicts in 153 locations, accounting for over 80 percent of total wars fought. 

It has also been making numerous excuses to simmer conflicts and provoke confrontation across the world for its own selfish interests, as it did in Iraq based on the infamous "test tube full of washing powder." Most recently, the U.S. played up the "Russian threat" to escalate the tension in Ukraine for the sake of its narrow geopolitical gains: it started the fire and fanned the flames, but is not going to put out the fire now.

A lie remains a lie even if repeated a thousand times. But all the lies the U.S. has made will only harm its credibility and image. Instead of racking its brains creating lies, the U.S. should do something useful for the well-being of humanity and world peace.

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