Wang Yi photo

The coronavirus needs origins-tracing, and so does the political virus, said Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, noting that the US has been trying to politicize the epidemic from the beginning and has continued to spread political viruses after it returned to the WHO.

Wang made the remarks during a meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province on Sunday in response to a question on how China views a small number of countries using the origin-tracing of the novel coronavirus as a pretext to attack and smear China. 

Tracing the origin of viruses is a serious scientific matter and should not be manipulated politically to blame a country or to divide the international community, said Wang. 

However, the US has been trying to politicize the outbreak, stigmatize the virus, instrumentalize the virus origins-tracing work and hyped the lab leak conspiracy theory since last year when it openly called the coronavirus the "Wuhan virus" and withdrew from the WHO, he said. 

He said the goal of the US is clear, which is to shift responsibility for its own weak response to the epidemic and achieve the political goal of discrediting and suppressing other countries. 

"This ugly page needs to be recorded in the annals of humanity's fight against the epidemic," said the Foreign Minister. 

Wang pointed out that the source of the origin of the novel coronavirus should be traced, as should the political virus. 

The WHO on July 16 proposed a second phase of studies into the origins of the coronavirus in China, including "audits of laboratories and markets in Wuhan," calling for "transparency" from authorities. 

Wang said the WHO's phase-II plan is jaw-dropping as it not only departed from the requirements of the 73rd World Health Assembly resolution, but also ignored the conclusions and recommendations of the first phase of the joint research report. 

"After the US returned to the WHO, it seems that the country was not focused on joining the international fight against the virus, but continued to spread political viruses by taking advantage of the platform," he said. 

As a sovereign country, China will not and cannot accept any work plan that is not a real plan to find the virus but a plan to discredit China. Besides China, nearly 60 countries have written to the WHO so far, recognizing the results of the first phase of research and opposing politicized attempts at virus origin-tracing, he said. 

Global Times