Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The so-called "Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party" recently cobbled together by the US House of Representatives is set to make its debut on Tuesday evening. Holding the first hearing in prime time is mainly out of practical consideration to facilitate the show. It was revealed that the hearing will focus on "security and other threats" related to China. In fact, they have already prepared political "dirt bombs" to attack China.

Just two days before the hearing, on February 26, the Wall Street Journal reported exclusively that the US Energy Department had concluded that "the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak." The report was fewer than five pages and even the Energy Department itself labeled it as being made with "low confidence." Nevertheless it has once again ignited the pile of dead ashes of US' political manipulation of virus origins tracing. As long as "China" is labeled on the package, even if it's trash, it can immediately be "turned into treasure." This is the current political situation in the US.

Just after the hype around the "unidentified flying objects incident" died down a little bit, Washington has begun slandering China, claiming that Beijing could possibly provide "lethal weapons" to Russia. Now, it has brought up the virus origins tracing issue again. The US has almost seamlessly linked its production and supply of anti-China topics. American politicians have become very good at playing such tricks. 

It's easy to fabricate rumors but it takes lots of time, energy and resources to refute them, not to mention that the US is using state apparatus to create and spread rumors. They simply do not listen to China's fact-based responses and clarifications. After several rounds, the US society's perception of China has been poisoned once again, which has led to the entire country being kidnapped. This has left the US government with less and less room to maneuver in its China policy, leading to a spiral of escalating tensions in US-China relations.

In the past two years, the virus origins tracing issue has been used by US politicians as an omnipotent political tool that can be brought up at any time to disgust people due to its unverifiable and difficult to disprove nature. To be frank, "low confidence" basically means baseless. It is quite inappropriate that the tracing of the virus origins is carried out by the Energy Department. Its unfounded conclusions have inexplicably attracted a lot of attention, indicating some people have seen the timing to manipulate the issue. 

The US has arranged many agencies to conduct so-called "virus origins tracing investigations" at the same time. Currently, only the FBI and the Energy Department believe that the virus is likely from a laboratory leak in China, while four agencies and a national intelligence group still believe that the virus may have a natural origin. There are also some other agencies which have not yet drawn out conclusions. The fact that the US is using its intelligence agencies to conduct origins tracing is evidence that the issue has been politicized.

The US' motive is not pure. Moreover, the US is simply not qualified to carry out the origins tracing alone. The origins tracing of COVID-19 is a serious and complex scientific issue, which should and can only be carried out through global scientific cooperation. China attaches great importance to and actively participates in global traceability scientific cooperation, adhering to the principles of science, openness, and transparency, and has twice invited WHO experts to come to China to carry out traceability cooperation. 

In January and February 2021, a WHO-China joint expert team that consisted of both international and Chinese authoritative experts conducted a 28-day investigation and research in China, and released a report on global study of origins of the virus, which reached an authoritative, professional, and scientific conclusion that is by no means matched by anything concocted by the US Energy Department and the FBI.

The US relies on its loud voice and dominance of discourse power to confuse right and wrong on the international stage, but a lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie. On the issue of origins tracing, it is US' turn to open up its suspicious biological laboratories and invite international authoritative experts to investigate.

As we write this editorial, the hearing has not yet started, but we can roughly imagine what kind of scene it will be. From the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq to the "White Helmets" in Syria, they are all produced on the same assembly line. Historical experience tells the world that no matter how many lies Washington spreads and how many humanitarian disasters it causes, its political elites and media may not even blush. Otherwise, how could this shameful political farce be staged one by one?