Joe Biden questions China's desire to find origin of COVID, says 'we're not old friends'

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said that China was trying to project itself as a responsible nation with respect to the coronavirus outbreak, although it remains “unclear” whether Beijing was really interested in investigating its origin. "China is trying very hard to project itself as a responsible and very, very forthcoming nation, and they are trying very hard to talk about how they're helping the world in terms of COVID-19 and vaccines," Biden told the presser. 

When asked if he would push for the WHO investigative teams to re-enter mainland China and commence the investigation, or ask the Chinese President Xi Jinping as “old friend to old friend” for the same, the US president responded, that the two leaders were “not old friends” and just know each other. “It’s just pure business,” said the US president. 

Furthermore, Biden added, that there were “certain things” that China cannot explain to the world unless there were evidence and results. He then questioned if China was indeed trying to get to the bottom of the pandemic’s origin. China had earlier lashed out at the United States saying that some forces were 'fixated on political manipulation' of the coronavirus.

The Chinese embassy in the United States had earlier issued a statement asserting that “politicizing the origins of the coronavirus” would hamper investigations, denying the Wuhan lab leak theory. “China supports a comprehensive study of all early cases of COVID-19 found worldwide and a thorough investigation into some secretive bases and biological laboratories all over the world,” the embassy had said in remarks on its website, attributing it to a spokesperson. 

China reacts to US' appeals of 'cooperation and transparency'

Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also made a phone call to his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi “stressing the importance of cooperation and transparency regarding the origin of the virus, including the need for WHO Phase 2 expert-led studies in China,” according to the State Department’s statement. However, the Chinese minister lambasted the US' “attempts to smear China” saying it won’t tolerate such accusations. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin, separately, slammed the US for repeatedly asking China to invite the WHO for a subsequent investigation into the COVID-19 origin, and instead asked the United States to “explain to the world about its 200 bio labs.”

“We wish that the US side can, like China, uphold an open and transparent attitude, and be able to invite WHO experts to the US to conduct origin tracing research and inspection,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a state press conference. China’s state-run Global Times’ editor-in-chief  Hu Xijin also denounced the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s remarks that the US should conduct an “independent review of WHO’s investigation,” saying that it must be the other way round. “The US independently examining the WHO’s data? It’s the WHO who should examine the US data,” the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily’s chief said on Chinese social media, Weibo.