China warns US, says being pushed to ‘brink of new Cold War’; rejects ‘lies’ on coronavirus

The United States is pushing relations with China to “the brink of a new Cold War”, China’s international minster stated Sunday, rejecting US “lies” over the coronavirus whereas saying Beijing was open to a global effort to search out its supply.

Keeping up the worsening confrontation with Washington over the pandemic and a Beijing transfer to tighten management over Hong Kong, Wang Yi stated the United States had been contaminated by a “political virus” compelling figures there to repeatedly assault China.

“It has come to our attention that some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War,” Wang advised reporters throughout a press convention at China’s week-long annual parliamentary session.

Longstanding friction between the 2 powers over commerce, human rights and a spread of different points have been pushed to new heights for the reason that virus outbreak.

Wang didn’t determine what “forces” he was referring to, however US President Donald Trump has led world criticism of China’s preliminary response to the pandemic, which has brought about greater than 340,000 deaths and financial carnage worldwide.

Trump and members of his administration have stated China coated up the emergence of the virus late final 12 months and bungled its preliminary response.

Washington’s criticism has been extensively seen within the United States as an try by Trump to divert consideration from the White House’s personal COVID-19 failures.

Wang took an obvious swipe on the US struggles to comprise the virus, which has now contaminated extra individuals within the United States than anyplace else.

“I call on the US to stop wasting time and stop wasting precious lives,” Wang stated.

He stated China was “open” to worldwide cooperation to determine the supply of the novel coronavirus, however confused that any investigation should be “free of political interference”.

– ‘Stigmatising China’ –

“Some political figures in the US rush to label the virus and politicise its origins, stigmatising China,” Wang stated.

Most scientists imagine the virus jumped from animals to people after rising in China, presumably from a market within the central metropolis of Wuhan the place unique animals had been bought for meat.

Governments together with the US and Australia have known as in latest weeks for an investigation into the precise origins of the virus.

The World Health Organization has additionally known as on Beijing to ask them in to analyze the supply, with China proposing as an alternative that the “global response” to COVID-19 ought to solely be assessed when the pandemic is over.

WHO members on Tuesday adopted a decision, tabled by the European Union, on the UN physique’s first digital meeting to assessment the worldwide dealing with of the pandemic, but it surely doesn’t single out China.

Wang stated an investigation should “oppose any presumption of guilt”.

“Aside from the devastation caused by the novel coronavirus, there is also a political virus spreading through the US,” he stated.

“This political virus is the use of every opportunity to attack and smear China. Some politicians completely disregard basic facts and have fabricated too many lies targeting China, and plotted too many conspiracies.”

The introduction at China’s legislature on Friday of a proposal to impose a safety legislation in Hong Kong to suppress the semi-autonomous metropolis’s pro-democracy motion additionally has drawn US and world condemnation.

But Wang defended the plan, saying it should be carried out “without the slightest delay”, including that months of often-violent Hong Kong protests final 12 months towards China’s rising affect within the monetary hub had “seriously endangered China’s national security”.

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