Joe Biden's new bottle contains nothing but Trump's old wine: China Daily editorial

Almost at the same time as US President Joe Biden stressed the importance of "multinational cooperation" in the virtual informal meeting of APEC leaders on Friday, his government warned US business about the "risks" of operating in Hong Kong, and sanctioned seven deputy heads of the Chinese central government's liaison office in the special administration region.

Washington's brazen interference in China's internal affairs and long-arm jurisdiction have again laid bare the hypocrisy of the Biden administration, as neither the multilateralism it calls for, nor the "free and open" order it talks of are what it professes them to be. Instead, such talk is simply fig leaves that it is using to cover up its true intention of hijacking the global agenda for its own narrow ends.

The genuine appeals made at the meeting for the APEC members to set aside their divergences and strengthen mutual assistance and coordination in a bid to tame the novel coronavirus at an early date and boost balanced economic recovery have fallen on the US leader's deaf ears once again.

About half a year has passed since the Biden administration took office, but while it might have sweetened the stench by perfuming it with the heady scent of values, there is no disguising the fact that it is simply pursuing the same old America "above-and-beyond" policies of its predecessor, which already smelled overripe back them. That the Biden administration takes it for granted, and is trying to persuade the US people that it can fix all US challenges by thwarting China's catching-up with the US, and trying to convince the world that China is at the root of all the global problems, makes it no different from the Donald Trump administration. That explains why it is indulging the ever-intensifying anti-China mood in Washington and beyond regardless of how the trouble it starts may end up.

No wonder, countries are displaying a growing wariness of the US' reckless attempts to dust off its Cold War manual.

In fact, the Biden administration's version of its predecessor's anti-China stance is more dangerous as it is attempting to force all countries to make a choice between the US and China, without any regard for the consequences.

With millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines expiring in its freezers while most underdeveloped countries are still crying out for vaccines, the US' bid to abduct multilateralism for its own selfish interests is self-evident, and that deserves the vigilance of the whole world.

Washington does not care whether the new Cold War it seeks paralyzes the global economy or prolongs the COVID-19 pandemic, as long as the US economy is doing okay and the novel coronavirus is tamed at home.

Its neo-Trumpism is nothing but opium the Biden administration is administering to the US people so they can divorce themselves from the reality of US' situation, and that may lead to dangerous delusions.