Coronavirus: US-China rivalry hampering global efforts to fight Covid-19, EU ambassador to China says
- Tensions between Washington and Beijing ‘not conductive to the cooperative spirit we need today’, Nicolas Chapuis says
- But EU and China are working hard to reschedule a bilateral summit – on hold since February – ahead of a planned leaders’ meeting in September, he says
“We are seeing high levels of tensions – strategic, economic, political – growing day after day. It is our opinion that these tensions are not conducive to the cooperative spirit we need today,” ambassador Nicolas Chapuis told an online press briefing.
“I am convinced that the EU voice is today more than ever necessary. We are the core of multilateral solutions that need to be taken to mitigate the coronavirus crisis and prepare for economic recovery,” he said.
As the coronavirus has spread around the world, Beijing and Washington have repeatedly pointed fingers and traded barbs over their respective handling of the health crisis and the origin of the pathogen, which was first reported in Wuhan, the capital of the central Chinese province of Hubei.
Meanwhile, relations between China and the EU, which are this year marking 45 years of diplomatic ties, were “on track”, Chapuis said, despite their occasional clashes on the Covid-19 issue.