Pot, meet kettle.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has repeatedly refused to let investigators determine whether COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab, now wants worldwide cooperation to battle the pandemic, urging nations to reject “Cold War mentality” in a none-too-veiled attack on the US.
“We need to discard Cold War mentality and seek peaceful coexistence and win-win outcomes. Our world today is far from being tranquil,” said Xi in the address Monday to the annual World Economic Forum that usually takes place in Davos, Switzerland.
The forum is taking place online this year because of safety concerns over the deadly pandemic.
“Protectionism and unilateralism can protect no one. They ultimately hurt the interests of others as well as one’s own. Even worse are the practices of hegemony and bullying, which run counter to the tide of history,” he said.
“A zero-sum approach that enlarges one’s own gain at the expense of others will not help,” he added. “The right way forward for humanity is peaceful development and win-win cooperation.”
Xi’s kumbaya moment comes amid China’s refusal to work with investigators from the World Health Organization into whether the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
It also comes amid the ruling Communist Party’s heavy-handed approach to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, as well as Beijing’s military aggressiveness toward Taiwan, a self-ruling nation that Xi has vowed to reunify, including by force.
His made the comments as the relationship between Beijing and Washington continues to deteriorate over the theft of intellectual property, unfair trade practices and China’s human rights abuses involving the Uighurs.
Xi, who has not left China since the coronavirus emerged in December 2019, said China has delivered 2 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccines to 120 countries and institutions and announced plans to send an additional 1 billion.
Following up on President Biden’s pledge to deliver 1.2 billion doses worldwide, the State Department said as of Jan. 11, 370 million doses have been sent to more than 110 countries.
Managers of the U.N.-backed COVAX program announced over the weekend that it has now delivered 1 billion vaccine doses to developing countries.
With Post wires
