Donald Trump and Xi Jinping face off at UN virtual summit

China’s leader took indirect shots at the United States and its foreign policies on Tuesday, warning in a UN speech that the world “must not fall into the trap of a clash of civilizations,” remarks reproduced minutes after delegates heard to the US president to insist Nations “hold China responsible” for how it handled the emergence of the coronavirus.

“Important countries should act like important countries,” Xi Jinping said in a speech to the UN General Assembly, a speech delivered remotely and recorded in advance because the pandemic prevented leaders from meeting as they have for decades. .

The virus first appeared in China earlier this year and has spread around the world, killing nearly 1 million people.

Xi, China’s president and leader of his Communist Party, called the fight against the virus an important exercise in international cooperation, an opportunity to “join forces and be prepared to face even more global challenges.”

“Covid-19 reminds us that economic globalization is an indisputable reality and a historical trend,” Xi said. “Burying one’s head in the sand like an ostrich in the face of economic globalization or trying to fight it with Don Quixote’s spear goes against the current of history. Let us be clear: the world will never return to isolation.”

Such comments, while not naming US President Donald Trump, are highly critical of him and his “America First” philosophy, which runs counter to China’s public stance on how diplomacy should be managed. In reality, China tends to act unilaterally on both domestic and international affairs.

Earlier in the day, Trump used his own UN speech to roundly condemn the Xi government for what the US president often calls “the China virus,” a term he used again on Tuesday. He referred to the virus as the “invisible enemy.” The very term “China virus” is considered by many to be racist.

Although Trump generously praised Xi early in his term, two key issues – a tariff dispute and the emergence of the coronavirus – have helped his administration take a tougher stance toward the Chinese government.

“The United Nations must hold China accountable for its actions,” Trump said in his own speech.

China has a long-standing practice of reflexively rejecting any criticism of its policies. Tuesday was no exception. While Xi, who was pre-recorded and not there, was unable to refute what Trump said, his ambassador to the UN was in the General Assembly chamber and responded directly while introducing Xi’s video.

“Right now, the world needs more solidarity and cooperation, and not confrontation,” Zhang Jun said. “We need to increase mutual trust and not the spread of the political virus. China resolutely rejects the baseless accusation against China.”

Xi spoke at a historic moment when China is working to manage its staggering – and staggeringly complex – military, economic and political rise while tackling the aggressive containment strategies of the current global superpower, the United States, and its friends and allies.

“Xi Jinping has a lot of work ahead of him in the General Assembly,” said Mike Mazza, a China analyst at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He pointed to tensions with Europe over trade and investment, climate and human rights, as well as the Trump administration’s more consistent confrontational approach to China.

Xi has failed to capitalize on the bad sentiments between many European leaders and Trump, while a possible detente with Japan has stalled. Relations with Australia have plummeted over allegations of espionage and political manipulation and an investigation is called for into the Chinese origins of the coronavirus outbreak, Mazza said.

These problems are, “in general, problems of their own making,” Mazza said of China.

As aggressive as Beijing may seem to its neighbors when it uses its powerful expanding military economy to forge what it sees as its natural sphere of influence in Asia, this is a fragile moment in what is often seen as the inevitable rise of China as a superpower. .

Beijing has faced criticism over the continuing fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in Wuhan province late last year. Some say Beijing initially tried to cover up the outbreak before seeking to leverage its response for public relations purposes.

There is outrage over China’s severe restriction of civil rights in Hong Kong following the imposition in the semi-autonomous city of a widespread national security law, and over widespread accusations of mass arrests and cultural genocide against Muslims in the Hong Kong region. Xinjiang.

And there is also misgivings about China’s mounting pressure and military threats against Taiwan, the autonomous island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory.

Meanwhile, China’s moves to reclaim nearly the entire South China Sea have sparked friction with the United States and with Beijing’s southern neighbors, while a decades-long border dispute with India erupted this year into a deadly brawl between troops. rivals and shooting for the first time in decades.

All of this has undermined arguments favoring engagement with China as a trade war between Beijing, the world’s second-largest economy, and Washington, the world’s largest, simmering.

“Xi will find a very mixed international environment when he addresses the UNGA. Most of the democracies that had previously been very supportive of China’s modernization and development are uncomfortable with the way Xi is leading China’s rise,” he said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the London School of Oriental and African Studies.

The United States and China are now “locked on a collision course that could result in a dangerous military conflict,” Brookings Institution China analyst Cheng Li said.

An immediate goal for Xi will be “to show how China has stepped up to call for multilateralism and address global concerns … while the United States has increasingly left a huge vacuum in global leadership.”

Xi, in doing so with his speech, insisted that China under his rule is not deviating towards the imperialism that his communist government has long condemned.

“We will never seek hegemony, expansion or the sphere of influence,” he said. “We have no intention of fighting a Cold War or a Hot War with any country.”

– Associated Press