When the US blames a nation for a fabricated wrong, one can always find the US’ hypocrisy in committing the wrong itself.

That’s the case at the ongoing Shangri-la Dialogue where US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he is “concerned that the PRC has been unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries”. Everybody concerned with international politics knows he refers to China’s decline of a meeting between him and Defense Minister Li Shangfu.

However, Austin failed to mention that while preparing for the dialogue the US sent a CR-135 surveillance plane to spy 50 kms off China’s coast and interfered in the routine training of the PLA Navy.

When the US stretches its right hand out for peace, its left hand holds a gun aimed at that person.

Austin’s speech further exposes how the US lacks sincerity. Its 2024 fiscal year budget will increase by 40 percent over last year’s request for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, reaching a record high of $9.1 billion. It will strengthen Quad, AUKUS, work closer with Japan on uncrewed air combat systems, and hold an Exercise Talisman Saber composed of 14 members in July. Most ironically, they have even sanctioned Li Shangfu whom they claim trying to meet.

In all these moves it takes China as an imaginary enemy. It is such an antagonism that has prevented normal exchanges between Chinese and US militaries, not vice versa. If the US really wants a meeting, it had better drop the gun in its hand and be sincere.