China, Russia and US trade barbs at UN meeting over COVID-19 pandemic response

The United States, China, and Russia traded barbs on Thursday, September 24 during the UN Security Council meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly over several issues regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. As per reports, the clash between the three nations sprouted from allegations of mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic and further politicisation of the virus. The UN General Assembly is meeting virtually this year due to the pandemic.

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US, China and Russia clash at UN 

As per reports, the three veto-wielding council members took part in sharp exchanges on Thursday and the deep divisions among them seemed to have only deepened after the emergence of the novel coronavirus. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, “In such a challenging moment, major countries are even more duty-bound to put the future of humankind first, discard Cold War mentality and ideological bias and come together in the spirit of partnership to tide over the difficulties”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during his address stated that the common misfortunes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had failed to bring the three countries together and had instead created deeper divisions among them. Lavrov added, “We see attempts on the part of individual countries to use the current situation in order to move forward their narrow interests of the moment in order to settle the score with the undesirable governments or geopolitical competitors”.

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The Chinese and Russian representatives' comments were seemingly too much for the US ambassador Kelly Craft who, in her remarks, said that she was ‘disgusted’ by the contents of the discussions. Craft added that “President Trump has made it very clear: We will do whatever is right, even if it’s unpopular, because, let me tell you what, this is not a popularity contest”.

As per reports, the US representative alleged that the Chinese Communist Party was not equally committed to public health, transparency, and their international obligations as it had hidden the origin of the virus, minimised the dangers posed by the virus, and also suppressed scientific cooperation thereby allowing a local epidemic to become a global pandemic.

So far, the coronavirus has infected more than 32 million people across the globe and the current worldwide death toll as per John Hopkins coronavirus resource centre has crossed over 987,000. 

(With AP inputs; Image Credits - AP)

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