Donald Trump accuses China of causing 'great damage' to United States, world

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New Delhi: Upping the ante against Beijing over its handling of COVID-19 outbreak and border row with several nations, US President Donald Trump on Sunday (July 6) said China has caused great damage to the United States and the rest of the world. 

"China has caused great damage to the United States and the rest of the World!" Trump had tweeted on Sunday evening.

In recent times, China has been on the receiving end because of its military advancements or political ones. World leaders from United States to Canada to the United Kingdom, France and Australia have been openly criticising China's national security law imposed on Hong Kong. 

Trump had on July 5 asserted that China must be held fully accountable for its 'secrecy, deception and cover-up' that allowed it to spread the coronavirus all over the world. 

"China's secrecy, deception, and cover-up allowed it to spread all over the world, 189 countries and China must be held fully accountable," he said, accusing Beijing of covering up the outbreak of the pandemic.

Trump has expressed disappointment over China's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the past. In May, he claimed that it was the incompetence of Beijing that led to the mass killing across the globe.

China has denied US' claim of 'covering up' the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and has accused the US of attempting to divert public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a virology laboratory in Wuhan. "China was the first country to report the COVID-19 to the World Health Organisation (WHO), (and) that doesn't mean the virus originated from Wuhan... There has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in April.

The novel coronavirus which first originated in Wuhan in December last year has claimed over 5 lakh lives and infected more than 11 million people globally. The US is the worst affected country with over 1.2 lakh deaths and over 2.8 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University data.