Beijing is currently been pestered with questions over its alleged mishandling of the deadly virus in the initial stage. The U.S. is leaving China with no choice but to start a new Cold War, the country's foreign minister remarked as two of the world's largest economies are leaving no stone unturned in a bid to criticize each other for how it handled the coronavirus pandemic.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi appeared in a video news conference on Apr. 24 during the China's National People's Congress annual session to warn about America's attempt to turn history's wheel back, claiming that it will undo the positive outcomes of a long-established China-U.S. cooperation, hamper America's development prospect while jeopardizing world's prosperity and stability. Wang said a few U.S. political forces were taking the relations of the two countries hostage, leading to increased tensions.

He refrained from naming the political forces, he was talking about, but while Beijing continues trying its best to maintain a good personal relationship between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping by not denouncing American leaders, senior White House members including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have faced strong criticism. This comes when China has already come under fire from multiple agencies for allegedly mishandling the pathogen in the initial stage and going as far as silencing Dr. Li Wenliang and other whistleblowers.

Aside from criticizing China's handling of the initial outbreak, Trump has questioned the accuracy of the country's official death toll and even accused it of a lack of transparency. Trump kept referring to the pandemic as the Chinese virus or Wuhan virus and claimed that the WHO (World Health Organization) is helping Beijing to cover up the pandemic, NBC News reported.

China continues to reject these accusations and defend its action while blaming America's slow response to the outbreak for the increased number of death tolls in the country. Wang's statement comes at the heels of a WHO coronavirus assembly at which the U.S. delegation said there have been several attempts to hide the outbreak by at least one member state, without naming China.

With an alarming 98,578 reported deaths and over 1.6 million reported cases, America is leading the worldwide coronavirus death toll, an NBC News tally shows. China's officials, on the other hand, have reported 4,634 fatalities and 82,985 cases.

It is widely believed that the virus originated from a wet market in the city of Wuhan in Dec. 2019, Trump claimed he saw pieces of information that confirms the outbreak was a result of an accident in a Wuhan laboratory but didn't divulge details about the evidence he was referring to.