Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning Photo:fmprc.gov.cn

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday urged the US to make "a responsible explanation" to the world, after veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in a latest article, accused the US of being the culprit behind the Nord Stream gas pipelines blasts in September 2022. 

Hersh, an 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, published the article on his personal website on Wednesday, stating that the US military was involved in sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines after senior White House officials plotted for nine months within the national security community.

"If Hersh's investigative report is true, this is unacceptable behavior and must be held accountable," said Mao Ning, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.   

"The US should give a responsible explanation to the world," Mao said at a routine press briefing on Friday when asked to comment on Hersh's article. 

Mao said that the Nord Stream gas pipelines are a major piece of transnational infrastructure, and the explosions have had a significant negative impact on the global energy market and the global ecological environment.w

When asked to comment on US mainstream media's silence over Hersh's investigation, Mao stated that "it's not the first time" that US media has done so. 

"It proves that some US media outlets do not care what the truth is. They are deaf to the truth that really matters, and what is loudly hyped by them is often not the truth, but a false narrative," Mao said. 

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova urged the US to give an explanation over its role in the 2022 explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. "The White House must now comment on all these facts," Zakharova said in a post on her Telegram page.

In response, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said on Wednesday that the investigative article was "utterly false and complete fiction," while the CIA and Pentagon also dismissed the allegation using similar rhetoric, according to media reports.

Some US media outlets had pointed to Russia as the likely culprit soon after the Nord Stream explosions in September 2022, but Hersh wrote that political elites from his country had more incentive to destroy the pipeline, considering their words prior to the incident.



Global Times