As Hillary Rodham Clinton prepares to step down as US secretary of state, she took one last chance to show her tough-line stance on China by stressing the US opposes any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japan's administration over the Diaoyu Islands. Regrettably, she did not contribute to the solution of the issue during her term of office, says an editorial in the 21st Century Business Herald. Excerpts:

The instability in East Asia caused by the US' return to the Asian and Pacific region becomes the center of Hillary Rodham Clinton's work in the past year. It is obvious the US' core purpose is to contain China's rise by using Japan and the Philippines to make trouble for China.

The US provokes China time and again behind its Asian allies. But China will never make any concessions on sovereignty issues. To some extent, the US succeeded in taking up a tremendous amount of China's attention and energy with its scheme.

But Clinton and her colleagues should be aware that those tactics may also be used by Japan, as the radical right-wing activists in the warmongering country are seeking every opportunity to rid Japan of the restraints imposed on it after World War II.

According to statements from Japan and the US regarding the Diaoyu Islands issue, they underestimated China's resolve to defend its sovereign integrity.

The US also miscalculated by believing that containing China will benefit the US. In fact, souring Sino-US ties harms not only the national interests of the US but also the stability of the world and the ongoing global recovery from the financial crisis.

We hope the Obama administration will view Sino-US ties from a larger and longer-term perspective and will no longer pour gasoline on the fire of the Diaoyu Islands issue. If the US continues to make trouble for China irrespective of the feeling of the Chinese people and China's sovereignty, China will not need to take Sino-US relations seriously anymore.

It is OK for China to say farewell to Clinton as secretary of state. But if the US were to force China to say farewell to the US as a nation, it would be a disaster for both countries and the whole world.