"China asked Russia to delay Ukraine war until after Olympics, US officials say."

Above is the headline that appeared in the New York Times on March 2, claiming that China had some knowledge about Russia's military plan. And the paper's source, as usual, is intelligence.

There is no need to waste a single minute on refuting so ridiculous a lie that's against common sense. The lie will never effectively demonize China as its fabricators expect. Instead it only proves one fact, namely, that the US is trying to weave an intelligence net all over the world and spy everybody.

It is the same intelligence net that misled a former US president into launching a war on Iraq for a bottle of washing powder in 2003. Seems the current team in the White House has not learned a bit from the wrong of its old predecessor.

It also proves where the US media outlets pay attention to. A total of 10 days after the conflict began, the New York Times was still busy fabricating rumors about China, instead of contributing a bit to how to end the crisis and bring peace back to Ukraine.

Actually everybody knows why the Ukraine crisis escalated into what it is today. It is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's continued expansion eastward that added Russia's geographical pressure and worsened the Ukraine situation, behind which is the US aggressive policies.

As early as the 1990s, former US ambassador to Soviet Union George Kennan warned against that danger, but the US government turned a deaf ear to his voice. After the Ukraine crisis worsened this time, NYT columnist Thomas Friedman blamed the US' decision on NATO's eastward expansion for the failure, but the US government stayed deaf again.

Maybe US politicians need to learn from a traditional Chinese idiom, namely, that a dead knot can only be untied by the person who tied it. Just like Wang Wenbin, Foreign Ministry spokesman, said upon being asked about the NYT lie, it is time those who caused the Ukraine crisis thought again on the role they played in it, shoulder up their responsibility and take action, instead of pointing fingers at others.

The author is writer with China Daily.