China, US Diplomats Clash Over Human Rights, Pandemic Origin
Voice of America
BEIJING - Top U.S. and Chinese diplomats appear to have had another sharply worded exchange, with Beijing saying it told the U.S. to cease interfering in its internal affairs and accusing Washington of politicizing the search for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi and Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a phone call Friday that revealed wide divisions in several contentious areas, including the curtailing of freedoms in Hong Kong and the mass detention of Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region. Calls for a more thorough investigation into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 are particularly sensitive for China because of suggestions that it might have have escaped from a laboratory in the central city of Wuhan, where cases were first discovered. Yang said China was “gravely concerned” over what he called “absurd” stories that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab.Police keep watch on a street in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong on June 4, 2024. FILE - In this June 4, 2020, file photo, from left, pro-democracy activists Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang Tung, and Cheung Man-kwong attend a gathering to mourn for those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown at Victoria Park, in Hong Kong. FILE - A dissident Chinese student speaks to soldiers as crowds gather in central Beijing on June 3, 1989. Performance artist Sanmu Chen gestures to trace the Chinese characters of 8964 referring to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, along the Causeway Bay in Hong Kong on June 3, 2024 on the eve of the 35th anniversary of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during an Israeli military operation, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, June 3, 2024. A Palestinian child pulls water containers, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in southern Gaza City, June 3, 2024. A Palestinian man holds the hand of a little boy as they walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip on June 3, 2024.
The historic part of Heidelberg is flooded during high water of the Neckar river in Heidelberg, southwestern Germany, June 3, 2024. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks to Bavaria State Prime Minister Markus Soeder as they visit Reichertshofen, in the aftermath of severe flooding, near Ingolstadt, Germany, June 3, 2024.
South African President and President of the African National Congress (ANC) Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his remarks in the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) National Results Center at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand, on June 2, 2024. Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) supporters stand outside the Alexandra Library polling station in Alexandra, near Johannesburg, on May 29, 2024. Leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), South African main opposition party, John Steenhuisen, center, speaks with the media at the Independent Electoral Commission National Results Center in Midrand, May 31, 2024. uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party leader and South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma addresses his supporters outside the Johannesburg High Court in Johannesburg, June 3, 2024. Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema, right, reacts as he arrives for a press conference at the Independent Electoral Commission National Results Center at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand, South Africa, June 1, 2024.