US-China cold war could split world in two, UN chief Antonio Guterres says

Warning of a potential new cold war, the head of the United Nations implored China and the United States to repair their “completely dysfunctional” relationship before problems between the two large and deeply influential countries spill over even further into the rest of the planet.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres made the comments before this week’s annual United Nations gathering of world leaders – a convening blemished by Covid-19, climate concerns and contentiousness across the planet.

Guterres said the world’s two major economic powers should be cooperating on climate and negotiating more robustly on trade and technology even given persisting political fissures about human rights, economics, online security and sovereignty in the South China Sea.

“Unfortunately, today we only have confrontation,” Guterres said on Saturday. “We need to re-establish a functional relationship between the two powers,” he said, calling that “essential to address the problems of vaccination, the problems of climate change and many other global challenges that cannot be solved without constructive relations within the international community and mainly among the superpowers.”