Venezuelan tragedy: Hegemonic rhetoric poses challenge to international order

Venezuela's Acting President Delcy Rodriguez said on Saturday that the Venezuelan people remain firmly united in resisting any acts of aggression that threaten the nation's peace and stability. Meanwhile, citizens continue to take to the streets to protest, calling for the release of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. 

These developments follow the unprecedented U.S. strikes in Caracas roughly two weeks ago, which not only demonstrated how the U.S. launched a unilateral action under the guise of combating drug-related terrorism, but also shocked the world with its forcible seizure of the sitting leader of a sovereign country. 

While global condemnations of U.S. actions toward Venezuela have poured in, Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China, warned that the U.S. is packaging its bullying actions as so-called transnational law enforcement. 

"By manipulating rhetoric to deliberately blur the illegality and hegemonic nature of its actions, a certain degree of confusion has been sown in the international community's perception and response," Wang said. 

Reviewing U.S. military actions abroad since World War II, Wang argued that the U.S. has developed a sophisticated and highly deceptive rhetorical system to conceal its hegemonic nature. 

Citing the U.S. invasion of Iraq – launched under the false pretext of "weapons of mass destruction" – Wang emphasized that the U.S. has long used fabricated justifications to legitimize aggression, framing military actions as righteous acts of "maintaining regional security." 

Regarding the U.S. strike in Caracas earlier this year, Wang said the U.S. deliberately framed cross-border military strikes as "law enforcement operations."

By replacing wartime terminology with law enforcement terms, the U.S. has sparked domestic debates over procedural authorization, allowing it to bypass the international legal constraints of the United Nations Charter, Wang added.

Wang also noted that the U.S. is adept at selectively crafting the narrative to conceal the illegality of its military actions, using tactical details to obscure the strategic brutality of its aggression.

He further pointed out that the U.S. deliberately highlighted the "heroic deeds" of special forces in the forcible seizure of Maduro, reducing the complex reality of cross-border military interventions to the "high points" of "precision actions." This movie-like narrative serves to downplay the violent nature of aggression. 

Similar tactics were seen in the propaganda surrounding the capture of Osama bin Laden and the sensationalized portrayal of the "humanitarian crisis" during the Kosovo War, Wang noted.

Wang also stated that the U.S. avoids discussing its own role in creating conflicts such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War when asked. Furthermore, it selectively releases footage to construct a one-sided narrative, deliberately emphasizing the U.S. military's "zero casualties" while turning a blind eye to the brutal truths, such as civilian deaths in the countries it attacked. 

"These narratives deliberately create a blind spot in public perception of U.S. military aggression and cover up the historical truth of its long-standing foreign interventions," Wang said. 

Despite the various disguises of U.S. hegemonic rhetoric, Wang emphasized that these disguises cannot conceal the fact that the U.S. violates international law and infringes on the sovereignty of other nations. Instead, they serve Washington's ambition of maintaining global hegemony and safeguarding vested interests. 

Additionally, Wang pointed out that the U.S. manipulates rhetoric to rally public opinion and shift focus from domestic political polarization and social division.

By constructing a false moral and legal justification and linking foreign "military achievements" to domestic political interests, the U.S. strategically creates external enemies to deflect governance pressures. This enables a deep connection between political demands and hegemonic actions, Wang explained.

Recognizing that such rhetorical manipulation severely undermines the foundations of international rule of law, weakens the UN-centered international system, damages strategic trust between nations, and exploits the language of "universal values" to dilute global moral consensus, Wang called on the international community to go beyond passive criticism.

He urged the international community to build a proactive, strong and sustainable collective response system to avoid falling into passive reactions and empty debates.