Beijing on Sunday rose up against a US intelligence investigation published on Friday into the origins of the COVID-19 epidemic, calling it “political and a liar,” while urging Washington to “stop attacking China.”
“No matter how many times this report has been published and how many copies have been invented, it cannot completely change the political nature and error of this report,” said Wang Wenbin, a foreign ministry spokesman.
China had already expressed strong opposition to the preliminary findings, which were published in the synthesis report at the end of August.
Chinese cooperation is necessary
The document released on Friday is a new version of a top-secret report submitted to the US president at the end of August to explain the origin of the pandemic. Without new information, he said, intelligence services would not be able to judge whether the virus emerged through zoottransmission or through a lab leak.
He adds that China’s cooperation is likely to be necessary to find out the origin of the virus, while stressing that Beijing continues to “obstruct the global investigation”. According to the “laboratory leak” theory, the virus spread from a research center in Wuhan. The theory has been repeatedly rejected by China.
China has ‘basic information’
Beijing has been urged to consider a new investigation into the origins of the epidemic after the postponed and highly politicized visit by a team of international experts from the World Health Organization, which failed to determine how the virus had declared itself.
But Chinese officials have resisted the demands, saying they are politically motivated. In August, Joe Biden said China was withholding “vital information” about the origins of Covid-19, adding that Chinese officials had made efforts to block access to it by international investigators.
Although the Joe Biden study was launched as the lab leak theory gained momentum, the report notes that most agencies believe the virus was not genetically modified.