China rejects need for COVID-19 origin probe, says 'dark history' of US 'known to world'

As US President Joe Biden ordered more intel investigation of COVID-19 origin, China on May 27 hit out at the “dark history” of the US intelligence community. While speaking at a press briefing, China’s ministry of foreign affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian rejected the need for a new investigation into the pandemic and said that the Biden administration’s “motive and purposes are clear”. He accused the administration of playing politics and shirking its responsibility in calling for a renewed investigation and further also added that US “does not care” about facts, not it is interested in serious scientific origin tracing. 

Further, while referring to the US’ unfounded allegations of weapons of mass destruction which justified its invasion of Iraq, Zhao said, “The dark history of the US intelligence community has long been known to the world”. 

Biden has told US intelligence officials to redouble their efforts to investigate the origins of the pandemic, including any possibility the trail might lead to a Chinese laboratory. He asked the agency to prepare a report on the latest and updated analysis of the origins of COVID-19 within 90 days. White House has also deemed the investigation into the origin a "critical priority" and urged more transparency. 

Zhao, on the other hand, said that the US must open itself up to investigate its biological laboratories,  including at the military's Fort Detrick base. He said that the US side claims that it wants China to participate in a comprehensive, transparent, evidence-based international China. “We would like to ask the U.S. side to do the same as China and immediately cooperate with the World Health Organization on origin tracing research in a scientific manner,” he added. 

Wuhan lab leak theory 

It is imperative to note that lab-leak theory, initially trotted out by former US President Donald Trump then dismissed as "highly unlikely" by a delayed World Health Organization mission to China, has resurfaced in recent days. China rejects the theory the virus may have emerged from a virology lab in Wuhan. It has instead accused the US of peddling "conspiracies" and politicising the pandemic.

But the intensifying probe into COVID-19 origins globally holds relevance days after a previously undisclosed and controversial Wall Street report propelled conspiracies claiming three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care after they fell sick in November 2019. This was a month prior to Beijing's opening report of COVID-like symptoms in a patient. Fueling speculation on COVID-19 lab leak theory, the confidential US report read, "The US government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness”. 

(Image: AP/Pixabay)