Reluctance to press a military option near the borders of Russia strikes the Chinese as wise, not weak. Note that in the UN Security Council debate on Ukraine, China chose to abstain from the vote on the resolution denouncing the Crimean referendum.

This is not our fight, said Beijing. After the Security Council vote, Liu Jieyi, China's representative, explained that Beijing favored a "balanced" solution to the conflict, proposed the creation of a coordination group and a support package for Ukraine, and urged countries to refrain from action which could further escalate the conflict. In effect, his view echoed that of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, ever the pragmatic realist.

Closer to the crisis in Crimea, German Chancellor Angela Merkel distanced herself from stupid talk and, like the Chinese, sought a way out. "Their positions may be fundamentally opposed," wrote Le Monde Diplomatique, "but Merkel saw this as a reason to talk and negotiate, rather than insult each other." The tools of diplomacy are not given to diplomats to discuss only that on which there already exists agreement!

All honest Americans need to recognize that Western interventions in other countries often send out mixed moral messages as well. The US went stubbornly to war against Iraq even though the George W. Bush administration lacked international approval. Western interventions in Libya and Afghanistan also raised issues of international law. Those who live in glass houses should be the last to throw stones. The West needs to start looking at itself in the mirror instead of just looking down its nose at everyone else.

The US fools no one (perhaps except itself) with high-minded condemnations of Putin's obvious amorality when its own sense of international political morality is usually defined by cold calculations of national interest - much like every other country's.

The author is Loyola Marymount University's distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific Studies and the author of the Giants of Asia book series.

(China Daily 04/16/2014 page9)