China accuses US of ‘politicising’ COVID origin report, demands US lab to be investigated

Just before the release of a US intelligence community report of COVID-19, China criticised the “politicisation” by the US in efforts to trace the virus origin and demanded a US military laboratory be investigated. According to Al Jazeera, the US report is intended to resolve disputes among intelligence agencies considering different theories about how the Coronavirus has emerged, including a once-dismissed theory about a Chinese laboratory accident. It was due to be completed by a Tuesday deadline but it would take a few more days to prepare an unclassified version, the White House said earlier this week. 

Meanwhile, Fu Cong, the director-general of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ arms control department, told a news briefing on Wednesday, “Scapegoating China cannot whitewash the US”. 

“It is only fair that if the US insists that this is a valid hypothesis, they should do their turn and invite the investigation into their labs,” Fu added.

It is worth noting that China has repeatedly said that a laboratory leak was highly unlikely. It has even been ridiculed as a theory that Coronavirus escaped from a lab in the city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 infection emerged in late 2019, setting off the pandemic. China has instead suggested that the virus slipped out of a lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, US, in 2019. 

China has asked the World Health Organization for an investigation into US labs. When asked if China would stop talking about the Fort Detrick laboratory if the US report concluded the virus did not leak from a Chinese lab, Fu said, “That is a hypothetical question, you need to ask the US.” The WHO, on the other hand, has said that it will be creating a new advisory group to study the pathogens with pandemic potential and also understand the COVID-19 origin.

Inconclusive US report 

Meanwhile, according to The Washington Post, a classified US intelligence report delivered to the White House on Tuesday was inconclusive on the origin of the pandemic, in part due to a lack of information from China. The media outlet reported that the assessment, ordered by US President Joe Biden, was unable to definitively conclude whether the virus that first emerged in central China had jumped to humans via animals or escaped a highly secure research facility in Wuhan. Despite Biden’s directive that the intelligence community “redouble their efforts” to untangle the origin debate, the 90-day review brought them no closer to consensus, two officials told the Post. 

(Image: AP)