Many Chinese are indignant at the slow and reluctant response from the United States in condemning last Saturday's terrorist attack at the railway station in Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan province.

This despicable attack, carried out by East Turkistan terrorists, killed 29 innocent civilians and injured 143. There can be no doubt that such violent acts targeting innocent people are intended to create fear among the population. But while it has shocked the nation, it has also united it against terrorism.

However, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki lost her usual fluency when she said the US acknowledged that China has characterized the incident as an act of terror. The same confusion was also observed when some media organizations in the United States put quotation marks around the word "terrorists" when describing the eight uniformed knife-wielding attackers.

Such wording is perplexing. Does it mean that the US still cannot make a judgment of its own based on the gruesome pictures and widespread reporting, via both official and social media?

The US' reluctance to condemn the terrorists is obvious since neither President Barack Obama nor Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken out and deplored the attack.

The US sought global support immediately following the Sept 11, 2001, attacks and the bombing of the Boston Marathon last year. When former president George W. Bush led the US war of unprecedented scale on terror and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, in every global and bilateral meeting, fighting terrorism became an essential theme, even at International Monetary Fund and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, where the economy is supposed to be top of the agenda.

China has been quick to condemn terrorist attacks, both in the US and elsewhere. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China has also provided much-needed anti-terrorism cooperation to the US on the global stage.

But when China needs the same support, the US always looks the other way.

The US government has failed to condemn any violence against innocent civilians conducted by members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and other terrorist or extremist forces.