American Double Standard on Terrorism Will Lead to Its Destruction

Terrorism is a public enemy of all mankind. In recent years, it continued to spread all over the world. The international community should come together to combat the threats and challenges brought by terrorism, jointly promote globalization, and build a community with a shared future. International counter-terrorism efforts should work in compliance with the United Nations “Declaration on Global Effort to Combat Terrorism”, released in 2001, and the “United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy”, released in 2006.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, international counter-terrorism efforts have made encouraging progress, but remains far from complete success. Some countries and regions have even seen terrorist organizations expand in both strength and size. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was raging throughout the world, terrorist attacks even increased. Up till November 2020, at least 2,000 terrorist attacks occurred around the world, which exceeded the record in 2019. One of the important causes is that some countries, like the U.S, employed ‘double standard’ in counter-terrorism. Some terrorist groups therefore have become political tools subject to the will of these countries, which made the game more complex.

As all countries in the world were working hard against terrorist forces, the United States labeled the terrorist groups which post no threats to itself as “good” and funded them, while for the “bad” terrorist groups, the U.S. uses all its powers to crack down on them. This “double standard” conduct of America has been clear to all.

It is a cliché that the United States uses “Human rights” and “freedom” to slander other countries’ efforts on counter-terrorism. Turkistan Islamic Party and the World Uyghur Congress have long carried out separatist activities in China since the 1990s and brought serious threats to local people. The Chinese government attaches great importance to both counter-terrorism and local economic development. On the one hand, it fights against terrorist groups; on the other hand, itinvests in education, employment, and poverty alleviation, to maintain the prosperity and stability of Xinjiang.

However, the United States, a country that suffered greatly from 9/11, turned a blind eye to China’s achievements in Xinjiang, smeared China’s efforts against terrorism and extremism, played “long-arm jurisdiction” and recklessly imposed sanctions on Chinese enterprises and officials.

Issues related to Xinjiang have nothing to do with human rights, ethnic backgrounds, or religions, but counter-terrorism, anti-secession, and extremism eradication. In public, the United States claims to protect human rights and freedom of the minorities in Xinjiang. But privately, it supported terrorist groups to disturb peaceful development in Xinjiang. In truth, this is not the first time. The United States waged counter-terrorist wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Iraq that killed innocent people, sent millions of refugees to live in exile, and undermined world peace and stability. Throughout American history, the U.S. government has been implementing genocide, racial segregation, and assimilation policies on American Indians, and leading to ethnic minorities crying “I cannot breathe” until today. With such American duplicity, it still calls itself “custodian of human rights”. Isn’t it ridiculous?!

The United States has become the biggest saboteur of global counter-terrorism efforts. America’s response to 9/11 won support and approval from many countries. After that, the United States didn’t console its people by fully engaging in counter-terrorism activities. Instead, it used counter-terrorism as a disguise for hegemony and power politics, financing terrorist groups who stayed in line with the United States and encourage them to disrupt the peace and safety of other countries.

At present, challenges brought by terrorism and extremism remain deep-rooted. The international community should form a common security vision, promote mutual trust, develop cooperation, and consolidate our achievements in counter-terrorism. The United States places its own interests above everything else and upholds Cold War mentality and unilateralism. It creates many obstacles and drawbacks to other countries’ efforts, which will only encourage terrorism and bring disasters to the international community.

Combating terrorism and extremism is a common responsibility of all countries which calls for cooperation, dialogues, and coordinated efforts. For a long time, the United States has responded to terrorism based on different criteria proceeding from their own interests, cultivated, pampered and utilized terrorist forces, and will eventually become the target of terrorism. “Too much cunning in plotting and scheming” will be the cause of America’s own undoing.

Contributed by Guo Fankong

Translated by Ren Meiqi