US-China acrimony at 75th UN General Assembly as Trump slams Beijing for coronavirus and Xi decries ‘stigma’
- In pre-recorded addresses, Donald Trump assails China for coronavirus ‘plague’ while Xi Jinping calls for multilateralism – but is often just as pointed
- ‘We are moving in a very dangerous direction,’ says António Guterres, the UN secretary general
US-China acrimony loomed large at the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, with US President Donald Trump using his speech to lash out at China, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping warning the world to avoid “stigmatisation” over the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
In pre-recorded addresses to the assembly – held virtually this year because of the pandemic – the leaders of the world’s two largest economies offered sharply differing visions of the international order, which seem only to have intensified during the coronavirus.
Trump condemned China in his address, saying the country had “unleashed” the coronavirus on the world and polluted the environment at extreme levels with impunity.
“We have waged a fierce battle against the invisible enemy: the China virus,” Trump said. “We must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world.”
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Trump says UN must ‘hold China accountable’ for Covid-19
His comments came as the Johns Hopkins University count of coronavirus-related fatalities in the US passed 200,000, far more than any other country has endured.
Trump also accused China of dumping “millions and millions of tons” of trash into the oceans, of overfishing, and of polluting the world’s air. Trump has faced intense criticism in the US for his own efforts to weaken environmental protection regulations.