Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Monday inspected the preparatory work of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.

China's foreign trade with the EU totaled 4.05 trillion yuan ($620 billion) in the first 11 months of 2020, an uptick of 4.7 percent from a year ago, making China the largest trading partner of the EU.

Despite a wobbly start, China's economy ended 2020 on solid footing as the country is set to become the only major economy to post expansion in a year ravaged by the pandemic.

"I need to be blunt: the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure," he said.

Although the epidemic has hindered economic globalization, the general trend toward openness and cooperation among countries remains unchanged.

The entire U.S. Capitol complex was on lockdown Monday morning after a fire was reported several blocks away, Capitol Police said in a letter to lawmakers.

China has promised to provide its vaccines as a global public good to lead the worldwide recovery from the pandemic and has also revealed on some occasions it will donate vaccines to certain countries.