Guest Opinion: Can the West speak for the world?

By Xin Ping

BEIJING, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Ever since the start of the crisis in Ukraine, the United States and its allies have chorused that the whole world is rallying behind them to sanction and isolate Russia.

While U.S. President Joe Biden boasted that "the world is united in our support" and "our determination," it seems that the United States has forgotten that the world means more than just the West.

Statistically speaking, only 48 countries and regions actually joined sanctions against Russia. At the United Nations, the 141 countries that supported "condemning Russia" only accounted for about 40 percent of the world population, while the combined population of the countries that abstained and voted against it accounts for over 50 percent. As Edward Luce, an editor and columnist at the Financial Times, put in his comment, "the West is rash to assume the world is on its side over Ukraine."

Beyond the 40 or so developed countries that the United States considers to be the "world," there are 160 and more non-Western developing countries, mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, that actually account for more than 80 percent of the world's population.

Instead of being forced to "choose sides," most of them call for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Ukraine, and an early end to escalating sanctions that are crippling global economic recovery, especially that of many developing countries.

Having dominated the world for hundreds of years as a result of economic, military and technological strengths, the West has taken for granted that they are, forever, politically correct, advanced, democratic and developed; that they are the "savior of the world."

Guided by such a "belief," they even whitewashed and justified their indiscriminate bombing of former Yugoslavia and invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as "overthrowing totalitarianism" and "democratic transformation."

As former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, "If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

In addition, the West has long monopolized international media, having the power to narrate and define international events and suppress different views. One important reason is that Western countries, as major founders and donors of important multilateral mechanisms such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have been quite dominant in setting international agendas and rules.

Another reason is that nearly 90 percent of international news is broadcast in English or French, and the three Western news agencies, namely AP, Reuters and AFP, take up 80 percent of international news releases. Most of the major social media platforms are also based in the West. Such a power means that the West can easily define or defame any country at its will.

This is particularly notable during the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The self-righteous West has worked frenziedly in unison to block dissenting voices on almost every international platform and mainstream media, while at the same time reinforcing the paranoid narrative that "those who refuse to oppose Russia" are either "the enemy of the world and standing on the wrong side of history" or "merely spreading misinformation and propaganda."

Russian politicians and media were muted by the West, even including some non-Russian politicians such as Francesca Donato, an Italian member of the European Parliament who had her Facebook account blocked simply because of her opposition to the sanctions against Russia. Instead of promoting peace talks, the United States kept fanning the flame to bring Russia down and maintain its hegemony at the expense of the interests of the whole world.

Now, more and more people have come to realize the hypocrisy of the so-called universal values of the West, and the irony of its double-standard practice in many places across the world. As the global call for peace and justice is growing louder and stronger, the West will see the collapse of its narrative monopoly. Enditem

The author is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for the Global Times, China Daily, etc.