UNITED NATIONS, September 22. /TASS/: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called to avoid "a new Cold War" between the US and China during his speech at the General Debate of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly.
"The world needs a global ceasefire to stop all "hot" conflicts. At the same time, we must do everything to avoid a new Cold War," he said.
"We are moving in a very dangerous direction," Guterres added. "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 geo-strategic and military divide. We must avoid this at all costs."
The relations between the US and China have soured in the course of the novel coronavirus pandemic. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced suspicions that Beijing had hidden important information about the virus during the early stages of the pandemic, allowing it to spread outside of China. Meanwhile, Chinese officials stress that they did not hide anything about the pandemic. On top of that, Washington decries the situation around Hong Kong.
Excoriating 'vaccinationalism'
Antonio Guterres condemned the efforts of some countries to obtain the vaccines against the coronavirus only for their own use.
"We are working to advance treatments and therapies as a global public good - and backing efforts for a people’s vaccine available and affordable everywhere," he said.
"Yet some countries are reportedly making side deals [on vaccine deliveries] exclusively for their own populations," he noted. According to the secretary general "such "vaccinationalism" is not only unfair, it is self-defeating." "None of us is safe, until all of us are safe," he added.
According to the latest statistics, over 31,505,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 969,000 deaths have been reported.
