[By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

Even more ridiculous is that, while the White House has called China's move "inflammatory," it has immediately added fuel to the fire by sending two B-52 bombers into China's ADIZ.

Perhaps the world has become used to having the U.S. policing around and telling people what to do, so that people cannot confidently tell right from wrong. China has only declared a modest ADIZ compared to that of a certain country and, by common sense, an ADIZ is not a territorial claim at all. Why all this farce? The United States is totally alien to this region, yet its B-52 bombers can just fly here and there without notifying any country in advance, not to speak of its surveillance planes and submarines. And this is not considered a provocation! Nor are such acts ever criticized by the Western media.

America's many acts in Asia have given us the impression that while we want to build "a new type of major-country relationship" with them and prosper together, they might have wanted us to falter or crash. They must still be living in the past and see us as either "red revolutionaries" or the "yellow peril." Yet the truth is that we Chinese are peace lovers and upholders of justice. We have never colonized or invaded; we don't strike others or topple "regimes" just because we don't like them; we feed one fifth of the world's population and have made them collectively rich; we lead the world's economic growth and are the only big country seriously engaged in systemic reforms; we have emerged victoriously from a century's oppression and humiliation and are pursuing our own dreams. Why must we crash? Why should we? Why can't my country have its "air defense identification zone" while the U.S. and Japan both can and their craft do whatever they want in our skies and waters?

The deep truth in all these cases, I am afraid, is that we change but some others may not. They retain to their old confrontational mentality, refuse to learn about others, and wouldn't treat us as real equals. It is time for the U.S. to reexamine its moral standing in East Asia, realize that China has always been changing for the better and is a growing force for world peace, and do away with unnecessary confrontations and develop the new type of major-country relationship with us in real earnest.

The author is a China.org.cn columnist. For more information please visit: http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/luohuaiyu.htm

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