American exceptionalism leads to Washington's animosity towards China -- expert

SHANGHAI, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The so-called "American exceptionalism" has made some U.S. politicians and academics believe that their country is "truly exceptional," and thus bear animosity towards China's development, an expert has said.

They are very narrow-minded and represent a conservative political faction in the United States that is highly obsessed with the idea of America's global hegemony, Shen Yi, professor from the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Shanghai-based Fudan University, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Their deep-seated prejudice towards some progressive thoughts inside the United States, as well as towards China's development, has prevented them from viewing the world from a rational perspective, Shen said.

In Shen's eyes, the incooperative attitude adopted by the previous U.S. administration towards China on the COVID-19 issue has also exposed maladies of the U.S. politics. "When Washington opts out of cooperation with Beijing in the anti-virus efforts, it is to some degree a result of the decaying partisan politics in the United States," he told Xinhua.

Within the United States, he noted, "it is the partisan politics that has sent the epidemic out of control, and in such disarray, no politician is willing or bold enough to take the responsibility, because if doing so, it is only ruining their political career."

The United States highlights human rights quite frequently, and yet the human rights it has always preached are those of the rich, said Shen.

Commenting on China-U.S. relations, the professor said that while it is common sense that China and the United States stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation, Washington seems unlikely to abandon its containment and oppressive measures against China for the primary reason that Washington has been seeking hegemony in the international system.

He also said that Washington can no longer forge an alliance excluding Beijing, given China's market, its technological development, and the efforts to shore up global security.

"The era of a single country or a handful of them as the world's absolute center has gone," Shen said, adding that in the future more countries are needed to provide public goods for the world, act as positive role models and help tackle global crises, and join efforts to boost effective growth.