The United States should invite experts from the World Health Organization to launch a probe into Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina to find the source of the COVID-19 virus if Washington continues to insist on the lab-leak theory, according to officials and scholars.
And they also said the expected release of a 90-day review by the US intelligence community on COVID-19’s origins will sabotage a global joint response toward the virus and betray science.
The Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland, on Aug 24,
wrote to the Director-General of the WHO, and submitted two non-papers on Fort Detrick and UNC, and an open letter by netizens demanding an investigation into Fort Detrick.
Responding to a question at a daily press briefing, on Aug 25, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the international community, including the American public, has long had concerns over the illegal, non-transparent, and unsafe activities of Fort Detrick, citing bio-safety incidents in 2019 that led to the shutting down of the lab and the ensuing outbreaks of illnesses with symptoms similar to COVID-19.
At the UNC, the spokesperson pointed out that Ralph S. Baric’s team leads the world in research in this field and has already advanced capabilities to synthesize and modify the coronavirus. “We hope the international community can work hand in hand to resist the backlash of politicization and bring the origins study back to the right track of scientific cooperation,” Wang added.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has received WHO experts twice. It is extremely unlikely that the novel coronavirus was leaked from the WIV — this is the clear conclusion of the China-WHO joint study report, the spokesperson said. Those who insist that the possibility of a lab-leak cannot be ruled out should investigate Fort Detrick and the UNC in the principle of fairness and justice.
This week marks the end of the US intelligence community’s 90-day review as instructed by US President Joe Biden, who reportedly received a classified report on Aug 24. The unclassified version has not been officially available so far.
Such a hasty review done by the intelligence community will only add to the number of questions, serve the domestic political agenda in the US, stoke racial hatred toward Asians and further worsen the US’ ties with China, experts warned.
Fu Cong, director-general of the Department of Arms Control of the Foreign Ministry, on Aug 25 said the US, while clamoring for an investigation into other countries’ bio-medical labs, is the only country that stands in the way of establishing a multilateral verification mechanism under the Biological Weapons Convention.
“I wonder if the US obsession with Chinese biological labs signifies a change in its position on a verification protocol. Simply put, is the US government ready to withdraw its opposition to the negotiations of a verification protocol under the BWC?”
Fu said the litmus test would come next week when the Meeting of States Parties to the BWC takes place in Geneva. “China will once again call for the restart of negotiations on a verification protocol,” Fu added.
State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the US report will “seriously disrupt international anti-pandemic cooperation”, the US approach is anti-science, and its “conclusion” is bound to serve Washington’s own political purposes.
All parties should be alert regarding attempts to politicize the tracing of the origins of the novel coronavirus, Wang said in a phone conversation with Dutch Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag on Aug 24.
Kaag said COVID-19 origin tracing is a scientific issue and is expected to accumulate experience for responses to future pandemics.
Unnamed US officials told The Washington Post that the classified report of the 90-day intelligence community review “was inconclusive” about the origins.
The US claim that it lacks information from China “is just an excuse to cover up its failure of intelligence-based origins tracing”, spokesman Wang said on Aug 25.
Ruan Zongze, executive vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, noted the US “has been seeking scapegoats to cover up its failure in COVID-19 response”.
Elliot Ziwira, a senior writer with the Zimbabwean newspaper The Herald, criticized “politicking and smearing by countries like the United States of America” against China.
“The persistent need to depoliticize the contagion and its origin-tracing refrain cannot be overemphasized,” Ziwira said in an article published on Aug 24.
