Through the lens. Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The US is obviously carrying out a huge plot to frame China. CNN, citing several sources, said on Thursday that US intelligence agencies are digging through a treasure trove of genetic data that could be key to uncovering the origins of the coronavirus. 

According to CNN, "This giant catalog of information contains genetic blueprints drawn from virus samples studied at the lab in Wuhan." The report claimed that "it's unclear exactly how or when US intelligence agencies gained access to the information." But it also said, with ulterior implications, the machines involved in creating and processing this kind of genetic data from viruses are typically connected to external cloud-based servers - leaving open the possibility they were hacked.

In a move to deliberately mystify public opinion, the report said intelligence agencies are relying on supercomputers at the Department of Energy's National Labs, and there are challenges to decode information since it is "written in Chinese with a specialized vocabulary."

It is highly suspected that this is the US media coordinating with intelligence agencies to pave the way to sway public opinion before announcing soon a so-called US "investigation conclusion" that frames the Wuhan lab, and to further mislead people, shaping a powerful speculation that the virus came from the lab and a strong expectation for US intelligence agencies' investigative conclusion. 

The truth is that will be a monstrous lie. Not only that Wuhan Institute of Virology has repeatedly proved its innocence, the WHO expert team, which visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology earlier this year, said it was "extreme unlikely" that a laboratory leak caused the coronavirus cases in Wuhan. In an attempt to overturn the conclusion, the US is bypassing substantial obstacles - lack of evidence, as well as the difficulties in origins-tracing itself - via the mystique of intelligence agencies. It even voiced the possibility of hacking, which is widely despised by countries across the world, as a cover of its work. The Biden administration and the US intelligence community are trying so hard to rack their brains to smear China by all means. 

Such a performance is clumsy. That US intelligence agencies are doing a mission that top scientists in the WHO are facing difficulties with, and unveiling the "origins of the virus" with a hacking story - this is an insult to the problem-solving ability of the scientific community and an insult to the understanding of the international community.

Biden ordered intelligence agencies on May 26 to report on the origins of COVID-19 in 90 days. With less than 20 days left; the US' political game of framing China is about to reach its climax. 

Both "scientists" and the public opinion in the US have in recent months turned to believe what they once denied - the novel coronavirus came from a lab. The astonishing cognition shift, supported by no evidence, occurred at a whim. This change in thinking took place because the US now has a stronger political need to pass the buck to China and frame the Wuhan lab than it did during the Trump administration.

US intelligence agencies are not at all almighty in terms of collecting information. Their "legendary" capability is more accurately about how they fabricate intelligence to meet US political needs and manipulate public opinion, as shown in the classic example that the US used a tube of "washing powder" to declare to the UN that Saddam Hussein of Iraq had developed "weapons of mass destruction." Now, the US is bottling up another tube of "washing powder" to fabricate a charge against China. 

But China is not Iraq and won't be easily bullied. The US intelligence agencies' trick to frame China will never be widely echoed by the international community. Washington's hopes to deal China a heavy blow using lies will never succeed.