Illustration: Xia Qing/GT

The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 was signed by President Biden on March 20 of this year. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US has repeatedly hyped the "lab leak" theory, using intelligence instead of scientific evidence to manipulate the virus origin issue and fabricating illogical lies to attack China. This has not only been met with widespread opposition from the international community and the scientific community but it has also fully exposed the absurdity of the underlying logic of American hegemony.

First, the US distorts facts and creates chaos. In the law, members of Congress also included conspiracy theories that were clearly fabricated by Western media, claiming that some Chinese researchers had symptoms before the COVID-19 pandemic and demanding that the US intelligence agencies provide "specific evidence." Virus origin tracing is a serious and complex scientific issue that should be studied and explored by scientists and medical experts. Reliable evidence is necessary to draw conclusions. However, the US apparently believes that as long as it can confuse the public and rely on spreading a large amount of false information, they can condescendingly attack China without considering the scientific basis. In April 2022, former US President Obama openly stated in a speech at Stanford University that "you just have to flood a country's public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, and plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe." 

This is the consistent cognition and practice of American hegemony, which means that wherever there is chaos, the US will profit from it. If there is no chaos, they will go to great lengths to create chaos. 

Second, the US shifts contradictions and evades responsibility. Shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic, the US began to blame China, maliciously calling the novel coronavirus the "China virus" or "Panda virus," attributing the epidemic to China. Some members of the US Congress even threatened to "seek compensation" from China. However, the US has yet to provide reasonable and convincing explanations for the suspicious Fort Detrick biolab, the University of North Carolina biolab, and military biobases around the world.

Research has already confirmed that the novel coronavirus was present in the US in December 2019, but the US has been evasive and tight-lipped about it. The pandemic reflects and exacerbates the wealth gap and racial conflicts in American society. The US government repeatedly spreads rumors and creates trouble in the COVID-19 origin tracing issue, intending to divert the anger of the grassroots people towards foreign countries in order to cover up its government's mistakes and evade accountability. The US Congress members, who claim to be its representatives, not only fail to supervise and criticize the executive authorities but also collude with them, jointly smearing and attacking China using the virus origin tracing issue.

Thirdly, the US fabricates charges and exerts pressure. The COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 explicitly requires US intelligence agencies to disclose a list of "suspicious" Chinese researchers. Its intentions are more sinister than the previous US attempts to hype up the COVID-19 origin tracing issue, and its objectives are even more sinister. In the process of combating opponents and maintaining hegemony, the US repeatedly uses its power to retaliate against individuals. The most typical example is the "Meng Wanzhou case". The US not only tried to destroy Huawei but also made efforts to trap its senior executives, manipulating Canada to unreasonably detain Meng for more than a thousand days. When the US maintains its hegemony, they will fabricate various lies and despicable excuses and use the state apparatus to threaten and persecute individuals, their affiliated companies, and international organizations. The US side will use the state apparatus to persecute individuals and institutions, creating greater chaos. This will also become a "new focal point" for the US to hype up the origin tracing issue, sustain its momentum and lay the groundwork for its subsequent actions on this issue.

Of course, the underlying logic of American hegemony embodied in the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 is not limited to the above three points, but these three points are enough to outline the basic thinking and cognitive patterns of the US in maintaining hegemony. Although the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 is "full of absurdities", as a rare "sample", it highly condenses the underlying logic of American hegemony and reflects the increasingly irrational and impetuous state of the US against the background of the decline of its hegemonic power. This deserves high vigilance from the international community.

The author is assistant research fellow at Department for Developing Countries Studies, China Institute of International Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn