By Zhao Lijian*
Beijing: During the Vietnam War, the United States used cluster bombs and bio-chemical weapons and committed heinous crimes in Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Back then, the US released more than 15 million tons of bombs, landmines and shells in Vietnam, of which about 80,000 tons are unexploded and remain scattered in nearly 20% of the country’s territory.
Over the more than 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War, the unexploded ordnance has killed more than 40,000 people and wounded more than 60,000, or about 1,000 and 1,500 respectively per year. By the current speed of removal, these explosives are expected to be cleared in 300 years.
The US sprayed about two million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which infected nearly five million Vietnamese and killed 400,000 people. About two million people got cancer or other diseases. And many children were born with congenital deformities and disabilities.
In Laos, the US troops dropped 270 million bombs, weighing two million tons together, meaning one ton or 135 bombs for each people in the country. About 80 million bombs, or nearly 30% of the total, did not detonate and are still buried in 37% of Laos territory. More than 200,000 people have lost their lives in more than a hundred incidents involving mistakenly triggering the bombs every year after the war. The local socio-economic development has also taken a heavy toll. In Laos, 46 out of the 47 most impoverished areas are densely filled by unexploded ordnance.
The still-incomplete data of Yale University reveals that from October 1965 to August 1973, the US dropped 2.7 million tons’ worth of ordnance on Cambodia. Statistics of the Cambodian government show that from 1979 to 2021, nearly 20,000 people were killed and more than 45,000 people were crippled by unexploded ordnance including landmines. The US keeps talking about defending democracy and human rights in Southeast Asian countries. They should not profess this until they remove all the unexploded bombs.
But sadly, tragedies of the last century are being repeated in the new era. In the past two decades, the US military has launched over 90,000 airstrikes on Syria, Iraq and other countries, killing approximately 48,000 civilians.
History has proven that the US is a destroyer of rules and order, a maker of violence and conflict, and a perpetrator of coercive diplomacy. It is a typical US-style “double standard” for the US to pin the label of “coercion” and “militarization” on others while forming small cliques and instigating confrontation in the name of democracy, human rights and rule. What the US defends is its own hegemony and “rules of the gang” at the expense of the fundamental interests of small- and medium-sized countries.
It is the common aspiration of regional countries and the shared hope of the international community to seek peace, solidarity and cooperation rather than turmoil, division and confrontation. No matter how lies are disguised, they will be debunked at the end of the day. Attempts to provoke bloc confrontation and create turbulence and tension will gain no support. Asian countries have a deep memory of history and can tell right from wrong. We will never allow the region to be used as a chessboard for major-power rivalry or a chess piece for major-power confrontation.
*Zhao Lijian is a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The published statement is made by him today in response to the Cambodian media reports about the uncovering of a US-made explosive weighing almost one ton containing more than 500 kilograms of explosives opposite the Royal Palace in the capital Phnom Penh. In April this year alone, at least five unexploded US aerial bombs were discovered in Cambodia by the Cambodian Mine Action Center, each weighing more than 200 kilograms.
