Sending Cluster Bombs To Ukraine Discredits US-Led International Law Says China

The Chinese foreign ministry has warned that the “irresponsible transfer” of cluster munitions to Ukraine could lead to “humanitarian problems”, after President Biden approved shipment of the weapons.

Meanwhile Chinese state media has said that shipping the cluster munitions to Ukraine is proof that the American-led “rules-based international order” is just a “mafia-style” hypocritical racket.

The state-run Global Times said said that the Biden administration was helping Ukraine commit prospective war crimes:

In February 2022, then White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the use of cluster bombs a “war crime.” A year later, the US altered its “rules” and decided to send these cluster bombs to Ukraine. 

The rules-based order suppresses anything that challenges US hegemony, such as China’s rise. Consequently, the US believes it is “righteous” to impose unilateral sanctions or export controls on China. But when China introduced its own set of export control rules on gallium and germanium, Karin Jean-Pierre, a White House spokeswoman, accused China of exerting pressure through the economy, underlying it is not fair play.

Breitbart reports: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday argued that America giving cluster bombs to the Ukrainians would not make the situation appreciably worse, because Russia – which also has not signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions – is allegedly already using them.

“Every ally I’ve talked to has said they understand why we’re doing this when we’re doing it,” Blinken said, alluding to the fact that many of America’s NATO allies did sign the pledge not to use cluster munitions.

Leaving aside the international legality of their use, most of the U.S. media was appalled by cluster bombs until this week, when they suddenly began cranking out editorials explaining why giving them to Ukraine was the right call. The Washington Post specifically chided “liberals” for getting squeamish over the alarming risk of civilian casualties from unexploded cluster bomb submunitions, which can lurk on battlefields for years until civilians stumble across them.

Blinken conceded that cluster munitions for Ukraine were necessary because the U.S. and its allies are running out of conventional artillery shells.

“The stockpiles around the world and in Ukraine of the unitary munitions, not the cluster munitions, were running low. They’re about to be depleted. The hard but necessary choice to give them the cluster munitions amounted to this: If we didn’t do it, we don’t do it, then they will run out of ammunition. If they run out of ammunition, they will be defenseless,” he said on Tuesday.

This would certainly be a massive media scandal under a Republican administration – “GOP President Authorizes War-Crime Weapons to Cover Trillion-Dollar Military’s Inexplicable Ammo Shortage,” the headlines would scream.

Instead, the Left has stopped worrying and learned to love the cluster bomb. Luckily, Chinese propagandists are too busy making their umteenth case for why hypocritical Americans should shut up about Uyghur slavery to pick on that particular hypocrisy.