China Escalates War of Words at the UN, Tells U.S. to “Pull Back from the Brink”

By | October 8, 2020

Chinese Ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun

NEW YORK, October 9 (C-Fam) The war of words between the United States and Communist China continues apace.

The Trump administration has repeatedly condemned China’s treatment of the Uighur Muslims, including coercive population control. China’s UN ambassador struck back in the General Assembly committee for social policy on Tuesday, “Put away your arrogance and prejudice, and pull back from the brink now.” Ambassador Zhang Jun said U.S. foreign policy was “despicable” and accused the U.S. government of committing war crimes.

The animated exchange was the latest in a series of heated diplomatic talks between the U.S. and China at the UN in recent weeks, including in the UN Security Council. Like previous exchanges, it was coordinated in advance, proving that the diplomatic posture of the U.S. and China has moved to permanent and open confrontation.

Last week China told Reuters that the U.S. was trying to take the world back to the “jungle age.”

This week, China accused the U.S. of covering up domestic human rights abuses. Jun spoke of “systematic racial discrimination and violence in the U.S. judicial and law enforcement systems” and called attention to the Black Lives Matter protests across America in 2020. The U.S. “should allow its people to breathe,” he said.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft pushed back, calling Jun’s statement an “attempt to divert attention” from China’s human rights abuses. “The world sees Beijing’s cruelty on display,” she said.

She repeated concern for the Chinese Communist Party’s use of forced abortion and sterilization on Uighur minorities, echoing the statement of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos delivered last week during a commemorative event of the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went after Chinese human rights abuses in a speech delivered to the Florida Family Policy Institute.

Cuba delivered a statement on behalf of 45 countries defending China, even though, the situation in Xinjiang has widely been characterized as “genocide.”

Pakistan was joined by 55 countries in defending China’s prerogatives in Hong Kong. Though the actions of the Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong violate its agreements with the United Kingdom, the statement called any attempts to interfere as violations of international law. Proving the remarkable rise in influence of China, the latter statement was joined by several majority Muslim countries.

This strong show of support will help China boast of her influence and bolster the case it is building for being seen as the guarantor of multilateralism against U.S. unilateral action. As reported by Reuters, the geo-political tension between China and the U.S. is escalating fast.

In contrast, a mere 38 countries joined a a statement led by the U.S., Germany and the United Kingdom on the same day denouncing the situation in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, Uighur re-education camps and “forced birth control including sterilization” of minorities in China. The statement delivered by Germany, joined by several EU countries, did not mention forced abortion.

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter