World can’t afford ‘Great Fracture’

UN chief yesterday warned against a new "Cold War" between US and China as the leaders of the world's most advanced economies delivered their speeches at UN.

Xi Jinping yesterday warned against the perils of a "clash of civilizations" after Donald Trump angrily cast blame on China over the coronavirus pandemic and urged UN to hold it accountable.

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At a General Assembly held almost entirely virtually due to Covid-19, Trump delivered a speech in full election campaign mode, even using his loaded term "China virus."

"We must hold accountable the nations which unleashed this plague onto the world -- China," Trump said in a previous recorded address to the General Assembly, where each nation was represented by a single, masked delegate.

"Those who attack America's exceptional environmental record while ignoring China's rampant pollution are not interested in the environment. They only want to punish America. And I will not stand for it," he said.

Trump renewed his criticism of China's role in spreading Covid-19 accusing it and World Health organization of Suppressing news when cases first emerged late last year in Wuhan.

In his virtual address, Xi told the United Nations General Assembly that Beijing has "no intention to fight either a cold war or a hot one with any country".

"We will continue to narrow differences and resolve disputes with others through dialogue and negotiation. We will not seek to develop only ourselves or engage in zero sum game," Xi said in a pre-recorded video statement.

However, he warned against the perils of a "clash of civilizations" and urges world not to politicise the Covid-19 pandemic.

Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, opening the General Assembly, warned of the risks of rising tensions between the United States and China.

"We must do everything to avoid a new Cold War," Guterres said.

"We are moving in a very dangerous direction. Our world cannot afford a future where the two largest economies split the globe in a Great Fracture -- each with its own trade and financial rules and internet and artificial intelligence capacities."

The Trump administration has launched a global campaign against the influence of China, pushing back on its claims in the South China Sea and warning nations of the risks of accepting its lavish infrastructure spending.

China has been increasingly assertive, with some experts saying that it sees an opportunity at a time that the world is preoccupied with Covid-19.

Guterres also criticized the nationalist approach to the coronavirus, without naming Trump or other world leaders. "Populism and nationalism have failed. Those approaches to contain the virus have often made things manifestly worse."

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro used his address to accuse his nation's media of spreading panic. He also downplayed the destruction of the Amazon rainforest claiming Brazil was the target of a "brutal" and "shady" international campaign to discredit it.

In his speech, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for "sincere" dialogue to settle the growing row with Greece over Ankara's energy search in the eastern Mediterranean, rejecting any "harassment" by the West over the issue.

Despite the Covid-19 curbs, UN is scheduled to hold a number of virtual meetings on the pandemic as well as climate change, biodiversity and political turbulence both in Libya and Lebanon.