U.S. only cares about rules that meet its needs: FM spokesperson

BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- What the United States really cares about is no more than the rules that meet its needs and serve its interests, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said here Tuesday.

According to reports, the Iranian public recently gathered at events to honor Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), who was killed in a U.S. airstrike two years ago. Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations (UN) previously condemned the U.S. assassination as an act of state terrorism. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said the people responsible should face justice for their actions.

In response, spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a news briefing that the assassination of Qassem Soleimani is another example of how the United States has wantonly undermined the norms governing international relations based on the UN Charter. It is also one of the war crimes the United States has committed through abuse of force.

The United States could go as far as performing the "targeted killing" of a sovereign state's military leader through terrorist means in violation of international law, and also killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians around the world. All these illegal and brutal acts in the eyes of people around the world have been hidden by the United States behind the facade of "the rules-based international order" as it claims, Wang said.

He stressed that the United States repeats the mantra of "upholding the rules-based international order," but facts have proved time and again that what the U.S. side really cares about is no more than the rules that meet its needs and serve its interests.

"What it is committed to is nothing but an order that maintains the U.S. hegemony and enables it to override the international community. But such rules and order that violate international law will not be accepted by the people in Iran, the Middle East and the rest of the world," Wang said.