Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flat-out lied about China's policy towards the Ukrainian conflict during a speech that he gave on Thursday about his administration's relations with China. America's top diplomat said that "Beijing's defense of [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin's war to erase Ukraine's sovereignty and secure a sphere of influence in Europe should raise alarm bells for all of us who call the Indo-Pacific region home." This is a categorically false description of Chinese policy.

In fact, just the day prior, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the exact opposite. In his own words, "China has chosen the policy of staying away. At the moment, Ukraine is satisfied with this policy. It is better than helping the Russian Federation in any case. And I want to believe that China will not pursue another policy. We are satisfied with this status quo, to be honest." Unlike Blinken's description, President Zelenskyy's is categorically accurate. 

China practices a policy of principled neutrality towards the Ukrainian conflict that is consistent with its foreign policy ideals. It neither supports nor opposes any of the conflicting parties but instead continually calls for peace and has offered to mediate if both sides request its diplomatic services. This is the most responsible approach and should be the standard for members in the international community to aspire to. As the largest Global South state, China is setting a positive example for all.

This partially explains why the vast majority of humanity has refused to sanction Russia in solidarity with the U.S.-led West's illegal economic restrictions that were imposed outside of the UN Security Council. Even though some Global South states voted against Russia at the UN General Assembly, those same countries didn't follow up with sanctioning it.

America's policy is always to impose zero-sum choices upon others in an attempt to reassert its declining unipolar hegemony. That might have worked after the old Cold War and shortly into the start of the present century but it's now an outdated policy that deserves to remain in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

The Global South is obviously aware of China's truly neutral stance towards the Ukrainian conflict but the Western public isn't. That's because their mainstream media has been incessantly pushing anti-Chinese propaganda for over the past half-decade since the election of former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016. This resulted in manipulating their perceptions about the country, which his successor Joe Biden has continued to do as evidenced by his Secretary of State's latest lie.

The purpose of this "perception management" operation is to twist their targeted audience's views about China in the hopes of fueling the Sinophobia that Trump first provoked. Russophobia has now taken the U.S.-led West by storm, which concerns the most Sinophobic U.S. policymakers because they want everyone to continue viewing China as an equal "threat" to their subjectively defined "rules-based order" as Russia is, if not a greater one.

After all, Biden's inaugural trip to Asia was meant to solidify an anti-Chinese coalition in possible preparation of provoking regional conflict with China at a later date, perhaps over the Taiwan region as many now suspect is being planned. He didn't completely succeed in his goal, though, but his intentions were still transparent enough for everyone to see what he was up to. Blinken's lie about Chinese policy towards the Ukrainian conflict should be seen in that context.

To explain, the Secretary of State's false claim that China supports Russia instead of remaining neutral like it truly is was meant to imply that Beijing plans to destabilize the Asia-Pacific in the coming future. This interpretation is based on him directly saying that his literal lie "should raise alarm bells for all of us who call the Indo-Pacific region home." Blinken is very obviously trying to fearmonger about China's regional motives in the hopes of scaring nearby countries into allying with America against it.

He wouldn't have to resort to lying about China's policy and manipulating regional perceptions if Biden succeeded in solidifying an "Asian NATO." The very fact that Blinken had to stoop to this latest low is proof that the U.S.'s grand strategy of "containing" China is failing. Since it doesn't have much to show for it in terms of tangible substance, the U.S.' top diplomat felt that lying about his target's foreign policy can at least mislead some folks into considering that country a "threat" like he wants them to falsely think.

The takeaway is that American diplomacy isn't really all that much about actual diplomacy anymore but about lying and scaremongering. No self-confident country would ever allow their top diplomat to shame his honorable profession in such a way, but that's precisely what Blinken just did. Alas, no U.S. policymakers have a problem with that because they are deluded by false supremacist beliefs in their own "exceptionalism", which blinds them from realizing how poorly the world is reacting to this lie.

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