While China's special representative for Eurasian affairs Li Hui was shuttling from Ukraine to Poland, France, Germany and Russia to thread the needle for a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine crisis, some media outlets in the United States kept pouring dirty water on his efforts in a bid to smear China's pro-peace efforts by claiming he was doing Moscow's bidding.
The propaganda was typified by a Wall Street Journal report on Friday, which claimed to be based on the comments of "Western officials familiar with talks in capitals across the continent".
According to the report, Li was urging the countries to "leave Russia in possession of the parts of its smaller neighbor that it now occupies".
Yet Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted a video on social media the same day, saying that he immediately contacted the diplomats of the European countries Li had visited to verify that message after seeing the report. None of them could confirm the report.
Kuleba said the diplomats told him that the issue of recognition of Russian possession of occupied territories of Ukraine was not discussed in their meetings with the Chinese envoy.
The top Ukrainian diplomat has urged all parties to remain calm, think with common sense and not react emotionally based on one article. He said that Ukraine maintains a relationship of trust with all its key partners, including China, and stressed that Kyiv will continue to maintain communication and dialogue with Beijing.
Despite this, it is predictable that those US media organizations that have no price to pay for publishing such fake news will continue to fabricate such reports based on anonymous sources "familiar with the matter".
China's neutrality on the issue has been questioned from day one by the US and some of its key allies. Yet there is no more neutral party than China on the issue.
It is the US-led club that defines those supporting the Ukrainian side and opposing the Russians as "neutral", and led by Washington the members are pushing the proposition that only these "neutral" parties are suitable to act as fair peace brokers.
But the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization it dominates never mention that it is NATO's continuous eastward expansion over the past decades that has broken the delicate security equilibrium in Europe, a root cause of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Nor does Washington want the world to realize that it is the US itself that has been drawing tremendous benefits from the crisis in its bid to maintain its hegemony by tightening its control over Europe, weakening Russia and isolating China. Not to mention that the US is making huge profits from energy and arms deals.
As the US is paying almost no cost in this profit-making process, Washington will continue to prolong the conflict for as long as it can under the banner of defending sovereignty and freedom.
Peace-loving nations should offer their support to China's mediation endeavors, as these will gradually show their worth.