APEC not US' private garden

File photo shows the White House and a stop sign in Washington, DC, the United States. [Photo/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation is an organization of the region in which no member is a leader over others.

Everybody knows this fact except those in the White House, who, by abusing their position as host of this year's session of APEC leaders' meeting, have reportedly refused to send an invitation to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu. Their pale excuse is that Lee and some Hong Kong officials are under US sanctions, which only exposes their hegemonic mentality of putting their domestic law above international law.

By doing so the US has not only totally forgotten their obligation of serving every participant's right to join the meeting conveniently, but also ruined its own national credit on the global diplomacy stage. Its abusing the hosting position today makes people doubt whether it might abuse its positions in other international organizations.

Which reminds people of the history in which the US denied Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's visa to attend a UN security meeting in New York in January 2020. Who knows whether the UN will remain safe in New York and whether it needs to move to a safer place.

Besides its long self-appointed "world police" title, the US now appoints itself to a new title called "world organization police". Maybe the US was imitating Edi E. from the game Final Fight in its deeds, but that guy is very much hated and it's time the US gave up the illusion of being a policeman and be a good member of the international society.