Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu

China strongly opposes and has lodged solemn representations with the US over a so-called virus origins-tracing report by the US intelligence community that is completely political, fake, having no scientific basis and credibility, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said on Saturday.

We once again urge that the US should immediately stop poisoning the international cooperation on virus tracing and undermining global unity, and return to the correct path of scientific origins tracing and cooperation in the fight against the pandemic, Ma said on Saturday.

The virus origins tracing is a complex scientific matter and it should and can only be jointly done by scientists around the world, but the US has been obsessed with political manipulation and intelligence tracing, in disregard of science and facts, Ma said. 

The use of intelligence agencies for virus tracing itself is solid evidence of the US politicizing the COVID-19 origins tracing. When the US cannot present any facts, they fabricate lies to smear and accuse China, which is also their purpose behind making the report - shirk responsibility and spread political viruses, Ma noted. 

It is nonsense for the US to accuse China of not being transparent and cooperative. On origins-tracing, China has followed science, been open and transparent and we have invited WHO experts to conduct investigations twice in China. 

Early this year, a joint expert team conducted a 28-day investigation and research in China and released a joint China-WHO virus traceability report. That report made an authoritative, professional and scientific conclusion which has laid a good foundation for virus origins cooperation globally. China always supports and will continue to participate in science-based origins-tracing, but we are against political tracing, Ma stressed. 

Instead, on origins-tracing, it is the US that has been non-transparent, irresponsible and uncooperative. Its refusal to respond to reasonable doubts from the international community over Fort Detrick biolabs and more than 200 overseas biological experimental bases shows that it is trying to conceal the truth and evade responsibility, Ma said.

The US' politicization of origins tracing goes against the will of the people and has been widely opposed by the international community, the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister pointed out.

More than 80 countries have sent letters or issued statements to the Director-General of the World Health Organization to oppose the politicization of virus tracing and demand the maintenance of the China-WHO joint research report; More than 300 political parties, social organizations and think tanks in more than 100 countries and regions submitted a joint statement against the politicization of the virus origins tracing to the WHO Secretariat; More than 25 million netizens in China jointly signed an open letter requesting a probe into Fort Detrick. 

Global Times