New York | US President Donald Trump assailed China as the coronavirus villain in a strongly worded United Nations speech, extolling his own actions in the pandemic and demanding that the global organisation hold accountable "the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world".

Mr Trump's speech — made on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) via pre-recorded video to a General Assembly that was drastically curtailed because of the pandemic — was followed by a recorded speech from President Xi Jinping of China, who called the coronavirus a crisis shared by everyone. Offering no hint of contrition, Mr Xi portrayed his nation of 1.4 billion people as having acted responsibly to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.