China, United States “on the brink of a new Cold War,” says Beijing

China and the United States are “on the brink of a new Cold War,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Sunday of renewed tensions with Washington over the Covid-19 epidemic. Beijing also said it was ready for international cooperation on the origin of the virus.

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The first Covid-19 patients were reported at the end of last year in Wuhan city. It has since spread across the planet and killed some 340,000 people.

Donald Trump has regularly accused the Chinese authorities in recent weeks of having failed to provide crucial data on the severity of the virus, which he believes could have been halted.

“In addition to the devastation caused by the new coronavirus, a political virus is spreading in the United States”, regretted before the press the head of Chinese diplomacy. “This political virus takes every opportunity to attack and defame China,” lambasted Wang.

Against a backdrop of rivalry, Beijing and Washington were already at loggerheads for two years, with the trade war launched by the Trump administration on the basis of customs surcharges.

“Certain American political forces are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War,” said Wang Yi.

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