BEIJING: Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday stressed the importance of U.N.-centered multilateralism and urged countries – including the U.S. – to make a COVID-19 vaccine a global public good available to people everywhere.
“In such a challenging moment, major countries are even more duty-bound to put the future of humankind first, discard Cold War mentality and ideological bias and come together in the spirit of partnership to tide over the difficulties,” Wang said. The Chinese foreign minister, also special representative of Chinese President Xi Jinping, made the remarks at the UN Security Council’s ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the ongoing UN General Assembly. Speaking in the opening remarks, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the lack of international cooperation in tackling the still “out-of-control” coronavirus. Guterres said the international community’s failure “was the result of a lack of global preparedness, cooperation, unity and solidarity.” Guterres pointed to the nearly one million people around the world that the coronavirus has killed, and the more than 30 million who have been infected. What is needed more, Guterres said, is a cooperation that not only involves nations but includes global and regional organizations, international financial institutions, trade alliances and others including the business community, civil society, cities and regions, academia and young people.
-The Daily Mail-CGTN exchange item
