The bitter exchanges at the end of a virtual assembly on “Global Post-COVID-19 Governance” reflected the deep divisions among the three effective vetoed council members that have intensified since the outbreak of the virus in china’s Wuhan city.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke first of the importance of UN-centered multilateralism and referred to countries, adding to the United States, which chose not to make a COVID-19 vaccine a globally intelligent audience available to others around the world.
“At such a complicated time, wonderful countries have an even more wonderful duty to put humanity’s long term first, reject the ideological mindset and prejudices of the Cold War, and unite in a spirit of association to triumph over deceptions,” Wang said.
And in a blow to US and European sanctions, adding that he opposes Russia, Syria and others, he said, “Unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction will have to be fought to safeguard the authority and sanctity of foreign law. “
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the pandemic and its “common misfortune resolved disputes between states, but instead made them worse. “
“In many countries, there is a temptation to look for those guilty of their own internal problems,” he said. “And we see attempts across individual countries to use the existing scenario to promote their narrow interests of the moment in order to settle the account with unwanted governments or geopolitical competitors. “
It is too much for the U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, who opened her expired statements at the assembly with a direct reply.
“Honestly on your part. I am astonished and disgusted by the content of today’s discussion,” Ms. Craft said. He said other officials were “wasting this opportunity for political purposes. “
“President Trump has made it very clear: we will do everything that is right, even if it is unpopular, because, let me tell you one thing, this is a popularity contest,” Craft said.
He quoted Trump’s speech Tuesday at the virtual opening of the General Assembly leaders’ assembly in which he said that to chart a larger future, “we will have to hold accountable the country that unleashed this scourge in the world: China. “
“The resolution of the Chinese Communist Party to hide the origins of this virus, minimize its danger, and suppress clinical cooperation (which) has turned a local epidemic into a global pandemic,” said Craft, adding that those movements “prove that all the Member States are committed to public health, transparency and their external obligations. ‘
China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, asked for the ground at the end of the assembly and issued a long rebuttal that “China resolutely opposes and rejects America’s unfounded accusations. “
“By abusing the UN platform and its Security Council, the United States spread the political virus and misinformation, and created a division,” Zhang said.
Zhang said: “The United States perceives that its failure to control COVID-19 is entirely its fault.
The undulating head of the United Nations said that the global had cooperated in combat opposing the COVID-19 pandemic, and Guterres said that if the global responds to even more catastrophic demanding situations with the same disunity and disorder, “I am concerned about the worst. “”
He said the failure of the outer network “was the result of a lack of preparation, cooperation, unity and solidarity at the level. “
Guterres pointed to nearly one million people worldwide who have died from coronavirus, the more than 30 million who have been infected. He said the global reaction is fragmented and that “as countries move in other directions, the virus passes in all directions. “
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Edith M. Lederer, the UN’s leading correspondent for the Associated Press, has covered global affairs for nearly a century. Follow her on Twitter on http://twitter. com/EdithLedererAP
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