American Double Standards Messing Up the World

The Crimean referendum has ended with 96.6 percent of voters assenting that Crimea join the Russian Federation. The United States stated that it supported Ukrainian independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, emphasizing that the Crimean referendum was in violation of the Ukrainian constitution, and that the U.S. would not accept the referendum. In reality, the very party that caused the crisis is actually the West, with the U.S. in the lead, which persistently pushed for the eastward expansion of NATO and directly interfering in Ukrainian domestic politics. The United States, with its unilateralism, has practiced double standards on sovereign territory issues, wantonly advocating for multiple countries to carry out “color revolutions,” not only causing those countries to fall into the upheaval of disintegration, but also disrupting world peace.

The root cause of the current crisis in Ukraine is that the U.S. has vigorously pushed for the eastward expansion of NATO, at the same time aggressively drawing Ukraine into joining the European Union, eventually causing a fierce confrontation between the political factions in Ukraine with different stands. The Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations pointed out in the U.N. Security Council that “foreign intervention is the main cause of the conflict in Ukraine. This has caused massive material damage for that country.” The U.S. and the West bear unavoidable responsibility for the current chaotic situation in Ukraine. The best way to resolve the crisis is through communication and negotiation between all parties to appropriately handle their differences in order to prevent adding fuel to the fire. As President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping emphasized when he recently talked to Obama on the phone to discuss the problem in Ukraine, the situation in Ukraine is extremely complex. The matter at hand is for all parties to remain calm and controlled in order to prevent an escalation of tensions and insist on resolving the crisis through political and diplomatic means.

In the face of the recent Crimean referendum caused by the crisis in Ukraine, the U.S. and the West have toyed with double standards on respecting the sovereign territorial integrity issues of other countries. This time, the U.S. and the West want Ukraine to undergo a change of government and become the cat’s-paw in the western faction to challenge Russia. Now, they are unwilling to resign themselves to being in a disadvantaged position in this tussle, so they are now desperately saying they will defend Ukraine’s sovereign territorial integrity, pointing out that the separation of Crimea from Ukraine is in violation of international laws. However, on the 2008 Kosovo issue, the West insisted that “human rights are more important than sovereignty,” and strongly pushed for the Kosovar independence referendum; in 2010, the International Court of Justice in The Hague arbitrated that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence was in compliance with international laws.

The West’s double standards on sovereign territory issues is even more apparent with China’s Tibet and Xinjiang issues, continuing to support Tibetan and East Turkistan separatist forces. Recently, President Obama even met with the representative of Tibetan separatism, the Dalai Lama in the White House, despite strong opposition from China. The U.S. and the West have behaved paradoxically when it comes to the sovereign territorial integrity issues of other countries, practicing double standards and fully showing their hypocrisy.

The U.S. thinks that by manipulating sovereign territory issues of other countries, it can use this to set up “color revolutions,” making countries all over the world accept American-style democracy, with the U.S. as the leader. But in reality, it is exactly because of wanton disregard of the U.S. in interfering in the matters of other countries that has not only not brought democracy and prosperity, but on the contrary, has caused countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and many Middle Eastern countries to fall into unending war and suffering, and will eventually damage U.S. interests.