United Nations (USA) (AFP)

Orge The UN's chief executive officer, Wang Yi parking, has been identified asorespired and has had a black eye. "China will never be afraid of the threats or will bow to the pressures," he urges for the United States.

The United Nations General Assembly, all week in New York, was once again the theater of this "great divide" that awaits the world, to use the words of the host of the annual diplomatic high mass, Antonio Guterres.

Seventy years after its birth, Communist China claims more than ever its status as a great antagonistic power of the United States, themselves engaged in an unprecedented offensive to maintain their supremacy.

When Wang Yi denounces "pressure" and "threats" on Friday, he discusses Donald Trump's trade war and warns against the risk of "plunging the world into a recession".

He responds in fact to the American president who, in front of the same floor of leaders of the 193 countries of the planet, had attacked three days earlier the "abuses" of Beijing.

The government of the Republican billionaire has taken over, amplifying them to make it a fundamental axis of his mandate, the US accusations of unfair Chinese competition, or even industrial espionage.

- No more "abuses"! -

"For years, these abuses have been tolerated, ignored, even encouraged," lamented the America First singer, America first. "These days are over!"

The rival powers have for months been conducting trade negotiations punctuated with skirmishes and truces. However, as he embarks on the campaign for re-election, Donald Trump now suggests that an agreement may not be possible before the 2020 poll.

But behind this tussle that coughs the markets and feeds the headlines of the media, the confrontation is in fact widespread.

This "big divide", feared by Antonio Guterres, was described by the UN Secretary General at the opening of the debates: "A planet divided in two, which would see the two largest economic powers establish their power over two worlds separate in competition, each with its dominant motto, its own commercial and financial rules, its own internet and its own artificial intelligence, and its own geopolitical and military strategies in a zero-sum game ".

In fact, if Washington has made Venezuela its regional foe, Iran its bete noire in the Middle East and Russia its transatlantic opponent, the head of the American diplomacy Mike Pompeo does not hide it: in the long run, the real strategic rivalry is the one that opposes it in Beijing.

The Trump administration has therefore launched an all-out offensive, with the scent of cold war. It was Vice President Mike Pence who detailed this charge in an indictment of unprecedented hardness exactly one year ago.

- Warning about Hong Kong -

In addition to trade, everything happens there: diplomatic and military expansionism, massive attacks on public liberties and religious minorities.

The republican government is not necessarily isolated on the question. In Washington, a good number of politicians, diplomats and sinologists, all tendencies, agree that the old hope of seeing globalization "normalize" China, bringing democracy and freedom along with prosperity economic, has fizzled.

But some critics point out that US moves to counter Chinese influence follow the withdrawal of the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement, which was precisely the goal.

Donald Trump threw the text to the nettles as soon as he arrived at the White House.

The UN week was a privileged observatory of this face-to-face meeting.

Usually so quick to flatter his "friend" Xi Jinping, Donald Trump has issued an unprecedented warning in his mouth to the Chinese president about the political crisis in Hong Kong.

"The way China will decide to handle the situation will say a lot about its role in the world in the future," he warned, calling "firmly" to honor Beijing's commitment to "freedom." "and" democracy "in the former British colony.

At the same time, the US authorities were cracking down on Chinese companies for violating the Iranian oil embargo, as they have done on the blockade imposed on North Korea.

Finally, the US State Department took advantage of the General Assembly to try to mobilize the international community against "the horrific campaign of repression" by the Chinese authorities against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Beijing swept the charges and denounced, once again, the "interference" of the Americans.

© 2019 AFP