BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- In a recent systematic smear campaign against China, the United States has been attempting to pin all kinds of tags on the Asian country, including labelling Beijing's foreign policy as expansionist.
Apparently, Washington is either in need of taking history lessons, or has chosen to ignore the historical facts that do not fit into its China-bashing narrative.
The cultural values that have sustained the millennia-old Chinese civilization treasure peace, harmony and commitment to the common good, and reject the pursuit of hegemony. Expansionism is not in the Chinese nation's blood, and thus has never been on its policy agenda.
That tradition has continued since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949 and it has been deeply embedded in Beijing's diplomatic guidelines of promoting peace, development and win-win cooperation.
And it has helped put China on a path of peaceful development and opening-up, undergirding Beijing's commitment not to interfering in other countries' internal affairs but to working with the rest of the world to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
The concrete efforts and outstanding contributions China has made to global peace and development should not be ignored, misinterpreted or distorted.
As a responsible major country, China is now the second largest source of funding for UN peacekeeping missions in the world, as well as the largest contributor to peacekeeping troops among UN Security Council permanent members.
Its role has proved conducive and irreplaceable in the international efforts to resolve the nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula and in Iran, as well as the problems in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Syria and South Sudan, among others.
With a peaceful approach, China has settled its land border disputes with most of its neighbors and stabilized the situation in the South China Sea.
Also notably, the five-year-old Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has been joined by over 130 countries and organizations, has yielded enormous results, boosting local growth and improving people's livelihood. African leaders have refuted as groundless such accusations as "resources predation" or "debt trap" against the initiative.
Facts always speak louder. It is fair to say that, while pointing an accusing finger at China, the United States has failed to see that the "America First" policy and the zero-sum mentality behind it have reduced itself to an egoist state.
As far as the international community is concerned, it is certainly more disruptive than constructive to the global order and governance that such a superpower as the United States is bent on quitting international institutions and agreements, among which are the Paris climate deal, UNESCO and the Iran nuclear agreement.
In addition, it is not hard to find that many global and regional troubles, including political instability, terrorism and immigrant crises, are rooted in the U.S. egoism, arrogance and irresponsibility.
Meddling and bullying have largely featured in the U.S. maneuvers to maintain its political, economic and military dominance worldwide. Washington's slander against China, no matter how nobly-worded it is, can never fool sober minds.
With China and the United States being the world's top two economies and UN Security Council permanent members, a soured relationship between them does no good to global peace, stability and prosperity.
At the critical juncture of their relations, only by stepping toward each other and joining hands can they overcome difficulties and lead the world to a better tomorrow. It is time for Washington to make a sensible decision.
