China urges nations to build 'Great Wall of Immunity' against COVID, mum on virus origins

While shunning the growing clamour over the demand for an independent probe into the origins of COVID-19, China has now urged the international community to unite and construct a 'Great Wall of Immunity' against the pandemic that has claimed nearly 4 million lives globally. Drawing a symbolic parallel with the Great Wall of China, Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday, called on countries to unite against the raging pandemic. In a subtle tone of defence against the lab leak theory, as maintained by China, the Foreign Minister urged to carry out an 'international anti-pandemic cooperation'. 

Addressing the 9th World Peace Forum, held at the Tsinghua University in Beijing, Wang Yi said that countries across the globe should face 'imminent challenges together'. 

"The most urgent priority is to expedite the construction of the 'Great Wall of Immunity' to fend off the virus, surpass political discrimination and carry out international anti-pandemic cooperation," the Chinese Foreign Minister said on Saturday. 

Wang Yi also assured that Beijing would continue to work to improve the accessibility and affordability of vaccines to developing countries. As per reports, China has thus far, supplied more than 480 million COVID vaccine jabs to other countries. The Chinese Foreign Minister's remarks come amidst the renewed efforts to seek an independent probe into the COVID origins after the clean chit given by the World Health Organisation (WHO) earlier. 

Xi Jinping's 'broken heads & bloodshed' warning

Earlier, President Xi Jinping in an explosive speech from the Tiananmen Gate issued a warning to countries 'trying to bully China'. At the centenary celebrations of the Communist Party, as Xi Jinping boasted of how Communism had helped China assume significance in the globe, the President remarked that anyone who tries 'to bully China will face broken heads and bloodshed'. Xi Jinping's stern statement was seemingly directed at the US, which has been cautioning the globe against China's expansionist attitude and the issues of the virus origin. 

It is to be noted that the recent emergence of reports suggesting WIV's role in the outbreak of COVID-19 has led to mounting pressure on China to come clean on the matter. US President Joe Biden has sought a US intel report on COVID origins within 90 days, while the matter was also discussed at the recent G-7 summit in the United Kingdom. Recently, the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged cooperation and transparency over the origins of COVID-19 while having a conversation with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi. 

China demands Nobel Prize for WIV

Instead of making credible data available to the globe, China has demanded that the Wuhan Institute of Virology be bestowed with a Nobel Prize for the team's research on COVID-19. This atrocious demand by China's Foreign Ministry comes right after Xi Jinping's administration announced that the WIV lab, which is now widely considered to be the epicentre of SARS-CoV-2 origin, would be conferred with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize this year due to their work on COVID-19.

Last Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesman Zhao Lijian lashed out at global scientists for 'assuming' that the virus had originated in Wuhan because it was found there, and outrightly dismissed the lab-leak theory. "The genome sequence of COVID-19 was first identified by Chinese scientists, but that does not mean Wuhan is the source of the coronavirus, nor can it be inferred that the coronavirus was made by Chinese scientists," Zhao said.