‘Use science, not politics’

BEIJING: China is concerned that the so-called US intelligence report on the origins of the coronavirus will contain predetermined conclusions and be unreliable, as it urged Washington to stop politicising the scientific issue.

“Origin tracing requires science, not intelligence. It is anti-science in itself to trace the origins of the virus using intelligence agencies,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular news briefing on Tuesday.

It was unlikely that the so-called report by the US intelligence community, which had a notorious record, would be based on facts and truth, and it was “nothing more than a setup to prove a predetermined conclusion with selective evidence”, Wang said.

The White House said on Monday that it was likely that an unclassified version of the US intelligence community’s review of whether the coronavirus pandemic originated in a lab in China would be released as soon as next week.

In May, US President Joe Biden ordered a 90-day probe into the origins of the virus, even though the “Wuhan lab leak” notion had been dismissed by most scientists as a fringe conspiracy theory.

Tuesday was the deadline for the 90-day review to be completed.

“Origin tracing requires unity, not framing others,” Wang said.

Its purpose was to protect the lives and health of people from all countries instead of blaming others and suppressing rivals to serve one’s own interests, he added.

“The United States, out of ulterior political motives, has demanded that its intelligence agencies conduct so-called investigations into the origins issue, which has undermined international cooperation and has been widely questioned and opposed by the international community,” Wang said.

He urged the United States to get back on the right track of scientifically tracing the origins of the virus.

Washington’s politicising of anti-pandemic efforts had also led to the United States having the highest number of infections and deaths in the world, and its people had paid a heavy price, Wang added.

He also cited various US reports saying that the pandemic had multiple origins and broke out in several places, which required high attention and serious investigation.

“The United States should stop blaming and smearing China, and invite World Health Organisation experts to conduct origin-tracing research in the country as soon as possible,” he said. — China Daily/ANN