Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The White House on Wednesday released its new National Security Strategy (NSS). This is a routine of every US government and an important document that reflects and guides the incumbent government's internal affairs and diplomacy. But after reading the 48-page document, the international community generally feels a strong sense of unease and concern. The "national security" pursued by the US will come at the expense of the security of other countries. If the path and direction stated in the report is followed, the superpower of the US will sooner or later go to the opposite side of world peace and stability, and the consequences will be unimaginable.

The release of the strategy report was delayed for several months due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, but we did not see from the report that the US had deeply reflected on the root cause of the conflict, let alone learned any lessons. Instead, it further strengthened the camp confrontation and binary opposition mindset that led to the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. More seriously, the US has doubled down on this Cold War mentality in its relations with China, and "competition with China suffuses every chapter [of the report]", regarding China as "the most pressing strategic challenge."

Although some US media claimed that the report "includes no major shifts in thinking," it actually means that the Biden administration has failed to make any amendments to the Trump administration's radical stance toward China. Instead, to a certain extent, it seems to perpetuate or even reinforce that miscalculation. This is a result of the vicious competition between the two parties in the US. Both sides regard anti-China as a kind of "election bet," and have unwittingly fallen in a dead end in the process of raising the stakes in each other.

Public opinion has noticed a very striking judgment in the report, which is to claim that "the post-Cold War era is definitively over." Then what era is it now? The report does not give an answer. It just mechanically reiterates that "We do not seek conflict or a new Cold War." However, the report is also full of bragging about the so-called achievements of military alliances such as NATO and AUKUS. It lists in detail the US' steps of coordinating with its allies to launch geopolitical competition against other countries, turning the report's commitment of not seeking a new Cold War into a cheap swear.

The report also simply divides the pluralistic world into a "competition between democracies and autocracies" according to US' will, aiming at cutting off the possibility of peaceful and harmonious coexistence of different civilizations at the root. This is the clearest Cold War-style expression in US' national security strategy since the end of the Cold War. Washington's actual practices also reflect an undisguised zero-sum game, which makes the US' claim of "manage the competition [with China] responsibly" hypocritical.

It has been 31 years since the end of the Cold War, but the political elites in Washington still have not learned to coexist with other countries in a new way. They have failed to, or refused to, accept and adapt to the fundamental changes of the times. They still need to establish their own coordinates and guide their way by creating "imaginary enemies," as if they do not even know how to move forward without an "imaginary enemy." However, this approach has huge and dangerous side effects. In particular, they have found the wrong "imaginary enemy," and even created "adversaries" and "enemies" the US cannot handle.

The new report is a mirror, reflecting the selfishness, ambition and the deepest fears of Washington's political elites. In all its national strategy reports, Washington emphasizes US' "leadership." There is nothing wrong with ambition, but what does the US want to do by "leading" the world? The report shows that the US is still trying to rope in one group and fight another, creating division and confrontation in this world. There are also many contradictory and logically confusing contents in the report, which reflects the US' powerlessness and incompetence in the face of real global issues. Whether in terms of cognition or mental ground and vision, Washington has seriously lagged behind the complex evolution of the international structure and the needs of our times.

In its quest to suppress and contain China, Washington has lost its mind. In fact, comparing the future plans of China and the US, it is not difficult to find that Washington's outlook for the next 10 years is full of confrontation and zero-sum thinking, while China's plans focus on its own development and win-win cooperation with the international community. They are utterly different development ideas, with one full of hostility and the other being kind and friendly; one is looking for enemies everywhere, and the other is dedicated to making friends. Which road will be wider, history will give the answer.  

As for this latest national security strategy report, it is like a "conspiracy" that lacks novelty but is full of malicious intent, which is dangerous for the world and unfortunate for the US. How can a narrow-minded US claim that it can "lead" the world, and how can it make the international community not full of concerns?