China reacts to US accusations and reaches suspicions about the origin of COVID-19 on American soil

China reiterated the hypothesis that coronavirus may have originated in the United States in a report released on Wednesday, in response to former President Donald Trump’s government accusations of an alleged laboratory leakage in Chinese territory as a starting point of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The document, published by the state agency Xinhua, was released the same month as the White House launched a website with information about Covid-19. On April 18, the US government used the digital platform to reiterate the thesis that the virus would have escaped a laboratory in China.

At the time, criticism of former President Joe Biden, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, and the World Health Organization (WHO) were also criticized.

In Beijing’s report, the Chinese government criticized Washington’s actions and said the US would be politicizing the issue of the origin of the pandemic.

The text refers to a lawsuit filed in the state of Missouri, in which China was ordered to pay $ 24 billion for alleged acts of covering the initial outbreak and allegedly accumulated protective medical equipment at the beginning of the health crisis.

The Chinese publication also points out that relevant information about the outbreak has been shared with WHO and the international community “in a timely manner,” as described in the report.

The document also points out that a joint investigation conducted by WHO and China experts concluded that the laboratory leakage hypothesis was considered “extremely unlikely.”

In one excerpts, the report states that the United States should respond to international community concerns about the origin of the virus. “The US should not continue to pretend to be deaf and dumb, but should respond to legitimate concerns of the international community,” the document says.

Also according to the publication, the Chinese government claims that there is evidence that coronavirus could be circulating in the US before the date officially recognized by the health authorities of that country and before the first outbreak reported in the city of Wuhan, China.

“Substantial evidence suggests that COVID-19 may have emerged in the United States before the officially stated schedule and before the outbreak in China,” the document says.

The controversy about the origin of coronavirus has been a source of diplomatic disputes since the first months of the pandemic, officially started at the end of 2019.

While American authorities point to the possibility of a laboratory accident in China, Chinese authorities reject this hypothesis and have sought to divert the focus to possible alternative origins.

Earlier this year, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a new assessment on the subject. According to the agency, there is more likely that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory than in a natural environment.

However, the CIA report also points out that there is “low confidence” in this conclusion, indicating that the evidence available still does not allow certainly determine the origin of coronavirus.

In addition, the US agency emphasized that both the hypothesis of laboratory and natural emergence origin is still considered plausible. The absence of a definitive conclusion by the CIA reflects the degree of uncertainty that still surrounds scientific investigations into the beginning of the pandemic.

The dispute surrounding the origin of COVID-19 also has political repercussions. During his term, Donald Trump used the thesis of an accidental leak in Wuhan as one of the main charges against China, while the Chinese government began to adopt communication strategies to counter the accusations and launch questions about the role of the US at the beginning of the sanitary crisis.

The controversy is still in the international debate, especially in the face of the absence of conclusive investigations and the lack of consensus between experts and global authorities.

WHO has reiterated the need for new technical analysis and transparency by all countries involved to advance the understanding of the origins of COVID-19.

So far, there is no definitive scientific confirmation about the original source of the virus that triggered the pandemic. The absence of conclusive data has fueled the exchange of accusations between governments, making it difficult for efforts to establish a common narrative based on technical evidence.

The document released by China is part of a series of diplomatic actions aimed at reconstructing its international image and responding to the criticism received since the beginning of the pandemic.

Amid geopolitical tensions with the United States, the dispute for narrative control over the origin of coronavirus is still a point of friction between the two countries.

With information from Reuters