Here in New York, the United Nations General Assembly got underway Tuesday with world leaders and most U.N. ambassadors participating remotely due to the pandemic. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned against a “new cold war” between the U.S. and China.
Secretary-General António Guterres: “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. A technological and economic divide risks inevitably turning into a geostrategic and military divide, and we must avoid these at all costs.”
President Trump also addressed the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday, criticizing China during a pretaped seven-minute address — the shortest ever given by a U.S. president.
President Donald Trump: “We must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping also spoke and vowed to make China carbon neutral by 2060 with carbon emissions peaking within 10 years. Xi called on nations to “achieve a green recovery of the world economy in the post-COVID era.”