‘Enough is enough’: At UN, China and US exchange barbs over the coronavirus
China’s response was to US President Donald Trump who in his speech on Tuesday had demanded action against Beijing for spreading the infection.
China and the United States traded barbs with each other in the United Nations during a virtual session on the coronavirus on Thursday, reported AP. The US continued to attack China for “unleashing this plague” upon the world while China, backed by Russia, criticised Washington for its handling of global affairs.
“I must say, enough is enough!” China’s ambassador to the United Nations Zhang Jun told the Security Council meeting. “You have created enough troubles for the world already. The US has nearly seven million confirmed cases and over 2 lakh deaths by now. With the most advanced medical technologies and system in the world, why has the US turned out to have the most confirmed cases and fatalities? If someone should be held accountable, it should be a few US politicians themselves.”
Zhang accused the US of not behave like a major power. The United States “is completely isolated,” he said.
Speaking earlier in the session, Kelly Craft, the US ambassador to the United Nations, criticised the Security Council members for focusing on “political grudges”. Craft said: “You know, shame on each of you. I am astonished and I am disgusted by the content of today’s discussion. I am actually really quite ashamed of this Council – members of the Council who took this opportunity to focus on political grudges rather than the critical issue at hand. My goodness.”
Craft, however, left by the time the Chinese ambassador spoke.
Without naming anyone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the pandemic had deepened differences between states. “We see attempts on the part of individual countries to use the current situation in order to move forward their narrow interests of the moment, in order to settle the score with an undesirable government or geopolitical competitors,” he said, according to Al Jazeera.
China’s response was to US President Donald Trump who in his speech on Tuesday had demanded action against Beijing for spreading the infection. In his address to the UN, Trump had once again alleged that China covered up the origins of the virus in the early days of the pandemic and called on the United Nations to hold Beijing accountable for “unleashing the plague” onto the world.
“The Chinese government and the World Health Organization, which is virtually controlled by China, falsely declared that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission [of of the coronavirus],” Trump had alleged. “Later they falsely said people without symptoms would not spread the disease. UN must hold China accountable for their actions.”
UN chief blames ‘lack of global preparedness’
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres accused all major countries of failing in their handling of the coronavirus. He blamed “a lack of global preparedness, cooperation, unity and solidarity” for the coronavirus spreading out of control. “The pandemic is a clear test of international cooperation – a test we have essentially failed,” Guterres told the 15-member body.
Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 3.17 crore people and killed 9,75,038, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of worldwide recoveries is more than 2.18 crore. Of all the countries, the United States has the most number of cases and the highest fatality too.