China-US relations have deteriorated considerably over the course of novel coronavirus pandemic, for which top US leadership has sharply criticized China. China, on the other hand, has refused to take responsibility for its initial cover-up of the virus outbreak. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN body responsible for public health, is caught in the middle of the two quarreling giants. An online G-20 conference has now become the latest victim of this superpower tug of war. A virtual leaders’ summit of the Group of 20 (G20) nations was organized on Friday, which was to be attended by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, but was called off at the last minute due to lack of consensus between the two nations. Donald Trump has suspended US payments to the WHO in protest at what he regards as the body’s China-centric approach, reflected – in his view – by its failure to challenge China sufficiently over the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, the health minister for Saudi Arabia, which was hosting the virtual summit, abruptly cancelled a planned press conference saying he urgently needed to attend a domestic coronavirus taskforce meeting. With the number of coronavirus cases in the United States nearing 1 million and the number of fatalities having surpassed 50,000, the US is the new epicenter of Covid-19, the disease that originated in Wuhan, China. With the number of cases and fatalities piling up, large regions of the country under lock-down and economic activities largely suspended, the US is blaming China and the WHO for its present crisis. From accusing China of its initial cover-up and questioning the actual location where the virus originated, the US is questioning China’s lack of transparency over virus outbreak. US President Donald Trump even raised suspicion over the actual number of fatalities reported in China. Although WHO is being criticized worldwide for its alleged cover-up for China, mishandling of the initial outbreak and delay in declaring the disease a global pandemic, the harshest criticism has come from the US, which halted funding to the world health body.