Commentary: Actions work better than words in maintaining stable Sino-U.S.ties

The United States and China share far more common interests than differences. To steer the world's most important relationship ever on the right and healthy track demands sincere and actual efforts of both sides.

The U.S. sides, however, seems to have no heart to catch the "profound opportunity to set a constructive course and wide range of issues that will affect everybody across the planet," as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry put it in Beijing only days ago.

Recent remarks made by some U.S. senior officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, are poisonous to the ties between "the two of the world's major powers and largest economies".

Commenting on China's legitimate island construction in the South China Sea, Biden told young cadets of the U.S. Navy Academy at a graduation ceremony that China is the destabilizing factor in the South China Sea and the United States should keep peace in the region "as it has for the past 60 years."

"Coinciding" with Biden's speech, the Pentagon indicated that the U.S. military would conduct surveillance over China's island construction in the region.

Such accusation and move are groundless and officious as China has been undertaken legal and reasonable construction activities within its own territorial waters, and the United States is not a party in the maritime disputes in the region.

They also reveal the U.S. hidden motivation -- to contain China and maintain its own hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.

China's construction in the South China Sea within its sovereignty is aiming to provide service for marine search and rescue, disaster prevention and reduction, and navigation safety, as well as fulfilling the country's international responsibilities and obligations.

In fact, the United States has been a destabilizer in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, rather than a peacekeeper.

By touting contributions his country has made to peace in the Asia-Pacific region for the past six decades, Biden forgot the obvious truth that the U.S. military has frequented battlefields more than any others since the end of World War II.

In the region alone, the United States fought two of the biggest regional wars in the 20th century, in Vietnam and the Korean Peninsula, respectively.

Countries in the South China Sea should be wary, if not worried, of such promises of the United States, as history has proved it.

Rather than depending on the U.S. naval power as Biden boasted, peace and prosperity in the South China Sea should be maintained by countries in the region via joint efforts and heartful cooperation.

Regional problems and territorial disputes should be handled carefully by those directly involved and claimants, and any unilateral attempts of flexing muscles would be nothing but poison for regional stability.

Besides, Biden's remarks are not only harmful to the stability of the Asia-Pacific region but also mislead his young audience.

"We do unapologetically stand up for the equitable and peaceful resolution of disputes and for the freedom of navigation," the vice president said, trying to lead the young elites of the U.S. navy to believe it is honorable of their country to send fleets across the world's largest ocean for other countries' matters.

But then a false sense of honor and the arrogant belief of one's moral superiority can bring about extremely dangerous outcomes, just like what the French philosopher Voltaire said about war, "each one marches gaily off to crime under the banner of his saint." Endi