The hollow US claims for human rights, democracy, and global competition with China are falling apart. Impelled by his sinking popularity, the persistent anti-China obsession of the Trumpian white populist politics, and the increasing doubts about the US global leadership within Western allies, President Joe Biden has been taking highly provocative political, economic, and strategic steps to accelerate China containment; to assert global leadership and dilute domestic political pressures. No doubt, the rapid rise of China has phenomenally alarmed the US and its allies despite the former’s repeated proclamations for peace and amity. In the Boao Conference of 2015, President Xi Jinping held out China’s firm commitment to building a partnership with its neighbours to foster an amicable, secure and prosperous neighbourhood; adding that under the principle of amity and sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness, China was working actively to deepen win-win cooperation and connectivity with its neighbours. Notwithstanding President Xi Jinping’s altruist proclamations for peace and amity, the US hostility towards China has been relentlessly intensifying. During the last days of the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered an entry into the Federal Register that the US no longer recognised the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a militant outfit or an entity of concern. This singled out the US support for the militant group, and its designs to embarrass China in Xinjiang. The importance of the Uighur region to China can be well-gauged from the fact that it comprises one-sixth of China’s landmass, about a fifth of the national oil reserves, 40 per cent of high-quality coal reserves, and only 1.5 per cent of the population. The adversarial states have always considered Xinjiang as the soft belly of China. The emerging cold war would place the small and medium-sized states in a tight diplomatic straitjacket. The signing of agreements with the countries of southeast Asia for strategic cooperation and hosting of the Defence Ministers of ASEAN by the Obama administration giving a fillip to joint military exercises in the region, and the trade war with China sanctioning Chinese companies all reflected more the US gradual drift to cold war than simple plans to contain its rival. However, the world has witnessed an ominous acceleration in the provocative steps being taken by President Joe Biden’s administration. Soon after President Biden was sworn in, the CIA singled out China as the single biggest concern for the US. This was mirrored by President Joe Biden’s speech of April 28, referring to China as the first, foremost ascendant challenge to the US. In October, CIA Director William Burns announced the formation of a China Mission Centre (CMC) “to address the global challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China cutting across all of the Agency’s mission areas.” The CMC will exclusively concentrate on China containment by increasing the strength of its China experts and China-specific intelligence networking. On November 24, the Biden Administration blacklisted over two dozen Chinese companies. Eight telecommunication and technology entities were added to the US trade blacklist for their alleged role in assisting the Chinese military and security apparatus and intelligence networks in collecting sensitive technology. The US Commerce Department in all blacklisted 27 entities and individuals located in China, Russia, Japan, Singapore and Pakistan. These included a good number of entities and individuals operating in China and Pakistan for their alleged work on Islamabad’s nuclear and ballistic missile projects. While blacklisting these entities and individuals, the US Secretary of Commerce stated that “the global trade and commerce support peace, prosperity and good-paying jobs – not national security risks, and that they were committed to using export controls to protect their national security.” He made it clear that they wanted to stop the Chinese military from acquiring sensitive technology for advanced equipment. The most recent provocative diplomatic initiative taken by the US leadership is to exclude China and Russia from the impending US Democracy Summit on December 9 and 10 while inviting Taiwan which repudiates their own “One China” policy. Democracy has no universally accepted definition. It takes different forms conforming to local cultures, ideological, political, and social practices, and level of literacy in the population. The Western form of democracy cannot be imposed on all countries. Most of the US allies are ruled by autocrats and monarchs. This two-faced policy on democracy and human rights is more irksome and annoying than logically convincing. The Summit was designed to divide the world community on an ideological basis than promoting democracy. Again, the US along with some allies has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics being hosted by Beijing. This is unfortunate and amounts to “politicizing” sports. Though the US is fully gearing up for cold war with China, many of Washington’s foreign policy experts, as put by Daniel S Markey, would nostalgically recall the Cold War, when America’s plentiful resources conferred advantages over the Soviet Union and the dividing lines between East and West often seemed simpler. Others may think back to the immediate post-Cold War period as the “end” of history when US ideals seemed the envy of the world. Today, the global political, economic, and strategic conditions are phenomenally different. The US’s power and credibility as a world leader are on the wane. The world would have a more fluid and unpredictable global order with the US sway less dominant. China is economically and diplomatically far stronger than the erstwhile Soviet Union. Premier Zhou Enlai had famously defined Chinese diplomats as members of a “culturally armed People’s Liberation Army.” Today, China has more diplomatic missions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe than the erstwhile colonial states. The emerging cold war between the two superpowers would place the small and medium-sized states in a tight diplomatic straitjacket altering and curtailing their foreign policy options. We are already witnessing the rebalancing of relations and the emergence of strategic alliances in greater Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. The growing axis between the US, Israel, and India and their aversion to BRI, particularly the CPEC, must be a cause of concern for Pakistan and other countries of the region. The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books.