It is clear that the US is determined to hinder China's successful rise upon the global stage and is willing to do anything necessary to do so no matter how irrational or destructive to global peace and stability. US fabrications about labor in China's Xinjiang are just one part of a much wider propaganda campaign to undermine China's global image giving the US leeway when pressing forward with other sanctions.

Brian Berletic (Photo provided to People's Daily)

Accusing China of supposed "human rights abuses" allows the US to apply sanctions on China, and if successful, Washington will use the move as a stepping stone toward other economic, political, and perhaps even military means of encircling and containing China.

The US acting unilaterally to impose sanctions and other penalties on other nations including China completely undermines international law as well as peace and stability. In order for US sanctions to be effective the US must coerce all other nations on Earth to adhere to them often entailing legal, economic, and even military threats. The US wields sanctions unilaterally outside of the United Nations' many mechanisms specifically because these sanctions are predicated on baseless claims that would not hold up under scrutiny.

It is an irony that the US poses as the global arbiter in terms of international law and human rights yet is in reality the worst abuser of both including throughout its self-appointed role when "enforcing" them.

I really don't need to have gone to Xinjiang to understand both what was happening there in reality and also the absolute lack of real evidence provided by the US when making its many claims about alleged abuses taking place there. When serious claims are made by Washington, an equally serious effort in providing convincing evidence must follow. Of course the US has never provided that evidence and has a long track record of making serious but baseless claims against its adversaries.

Regarding Xinjiang, the US has been accusing the Chinese government of various "atrocities" for many years now. Washington has invested immense amounts of time and resources in this campaign regarding Xinjiang. The US has some of the largest and most well-funded intelligence agencies on Earth in human history, and yet no evidence has been produced by the US regarding these alleged abuses. The only conclusion honest, objective observers can draw regarding this fundamental lack of evidence is that no evidence exists because these abuses are not taking place.

It is clear by even the Western media's own admissions that significant strides have been made in improving the security situation in Xinjiang, a region that until only recently the Western media had even admitted faced a serious terrorism threat. The West attempts to claim that this was done through brute force alone but that is unrealistic considering all the brute force the US used in neighboring Afghanistan but to no avail. It is very clear improvements in Xinjiang's security situation are linked to improvements in the region's economic outlook.

In many ways, US sanctions targeting Xinjiang are an attempt not only to hurt China in general, but to sabotage and roll back the progress China has made in Xinjiang specifically. Perhaps the ultimate irony of America's obsession with Xinjiang is that while it claims it is interfering for the sake of the people of Xinjiang, its actions are deliberately designed to hurt them.

(The author is an ex-US Marine, geopolitical researcher, and writer who runs newatlas.report.)