China warns US pushing relations to 'brink of new Cold War'

Published May 24, 2020
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the United States had been infected by a "political virus" compelling figures there to continually attack China. — AP/File
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the United States had been infected by a "political virus" compelling figures there to continually attack China. — AP/File

The United States is pushing relations with China to "the brink of a new Cold War", China's foreign minster said on Sunday, rejecting US "lies" over the coronavirus while saying Beijing was open to an international effort to find its source.

Keeping up the worsening war of words with Washington over the pandemic and a Beijing move to tighten control over Hong Kong, Wang Yi said the United States had been infected by a "political virus" compelling figures there to continually attack 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 told reporters during a press conference at China's week-long annual parliamentary session.

Longstanding friction between the two powers over trade, human rights and a range of other issues have been pushed to new heights since the virus outbreak.

Wang did not identify what "forces" he was referring to, but US President Donald Trump has led world criticism of China's initial response to the pandemic, which has caused more than 340,000 deaths and economic carnage worldwide.

Trump and members of his administration have said China covered up the emergence of the virus late last year and bungled its initial response.

Read: Trump blames China for 'mass worldwide killing'

Washington's criticism has been widely seen in the United States as an attempt by Trump to divert attention from the White House's own Covid-19 failures.

Wang took an apparent swipe at the US struggles to contain the virus, which has now infected more people in the United States than anywhere else.

"I call on the US to stop wasting time and stop wasting precious lives," Wang said.

He said China was "open" to international cooperation to identify the source of the novel coronavirus, but stressed that any investigation must 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 said.

Most scientists believe the virus jumped from animals to humans after emerging in China, possibly from a market in the central city of Wuhan where exotic animals were sold for meat.

Governments including the US and Australia have called in recent weeks for an investigation into the exact origins of the virus.

The World Health Organisation has also called on Beijing to invite them in to investigate the source, with China proposing instead that the "global response" to Covid-19 should only be assessed when the pandemic is over.

WHO members on Tuesday adopted a resolution, tabled by the European Union, at the UN body's first virtual assembly to review the international handling of the pandemic, but it does not single out China.

Wang said an investigation must "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 said.

"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 security law in Hong Kong to suppress the semi-autonomous city's pro-democracy movement also has drawn US and world condemnation.

But Wang defended the plan, saying it must be implemented "without the slightest delay", adding that months of often-violent Hong Kong protests last year against China's growing influence in the financial hub had "seriously endangered China's national security".

Opinion

Editorial

Defining extremism
Updated 18 Mar, 2024

Defining extremism

Redefining extremism may well be the first step to clamping down on advocacy for Palestine.
Climate in focus
18 Mar, 2024

Climate in focus

IN a welcome order by the Supreme Court, the new government has been tasked with providing a report on actions taken...
Growing rabies concern
18 Mar, 2024

Growing rabies concern

DOG-BITE is an old problem in Pakistan. Amid a surfeit of public health challenges, rabies now seems poised to ...
Provincial share
Updated 17 Mar, 2024

Provincial share

PPP has aptly advised Centre to worry about improving its tax collection rather than eying provinces’ share of tax revenues.
X-communication
17 Mar, 2024

X-communication

IT has now been a month since Pakistani authorities decided that the country must be cut off from one of the...
Stateless humanity
17 Mar, 2024

Stateless humanity

THE endless hostility between India and Pakistan has reduced prisoners to mere statistics. Although the two ...