US President Joe Biden earlier ordered an intelligence probe into claimsthe coronavirus escaped from the institute, rather than the widely-acceptedtheory that it originated in wild animals such as bats and pangolins soldin markets in Wuhan, China.
China has slammed the newly announced US probe into the possibility thatCOVID-19 escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, warning that Washington ‘couldmeet its Waterloo in this battle’.
President Joe Biden’s earlier call on intelligence officials to “redouble”efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus to determine whetherit came from a lab accident or emerged from human contact with an infectedanimal was denounced as “political manipulation” in an op-ed in China’sstate newspaper, The Global Times.
Washington is warned of “having gone too far, exposing to the world itsfour ‘Achilles heels’ by continuing to probe the ‘lab leak’ theory.”
Beijing calls the US government “full of arrogance” for disrespecting areport issued by the WHO expert group, which stated after its mission toWuhan that the coronavirus outbreak wasn’t likely to have been caused by aleak from the lab in Wuhan, claiming the virus was most probablytransmitted to humans from bats via an intermediary animal.
China reminded that the administration of former US President Donald Trumpcut its ties with the WHO for political purposes, while the Bidenadministration had restored ties with the organisation, while stillmaintaining the “tyrannical demand” that it “serves the political interestsof the US”.
“This is playing political games to hijack science,” warns the op-ed.
While underscoring that tracing the origins of the coronavirus is, initself, a highly difficult and challenging task, the article criticises thepresumption of guilt imposed against the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
*‘Fabricating Lies for Political Purposes’*
In a statement on 26 May Joe Biden set a 90-day deadline to assemble adetailed report on the origins of the virus, “including whether it emergedfrom human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident”.
The US President acknowledged that a majority of the intelligence communityhad “coalesced” around two scenarios, but “do not believe there issufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other”.
The article in The Global Times at this point highlights the fact that theCentral Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies have a “longrecord of fabricating lies for political purposes”.
The current situation is likened to Washington’s claims in February 2003that Iraq, then led by President Saddam Hussain, allegedly possessedweapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that were used to justify invading thecountry.
Colin Powell, the then-Secretary of State, presented a vial of white powderat the United Nations, arguing the case that Iraq’s regime posed animminent threat, however WMDs were never found.
On this occasion, writes the article, it will be “more difficult tofabricate evidence to fool the international community.”
“The US intelligence agencies are coming out with again but have lost theircredibility at the very beginning of this race,” write the authors of theop-ed.
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In conclusion, the op-ed claims that Washington has become far too arrogantto acknowledge that its accusations against China have become a “politicalgamble for itself”.
Stressing that the US has placed itself in a “dangerous status”, thearticle warns Washington that it could “meet its Waterloo in this battle”,abusing its soft power to an extent when it loses all credibility.
*‘Lab Leak’ Theory*
As US President Joe Biden ordered an intelligence probe into the origins ofthe virus, his predecessor Donald Trump hurried to claim the movevindicates his consistent blaming of China for the coronavirus pandemic.
“Now everybody is agreeing that I was right when I very early on calledWuhan as the source of COVID-19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus,”Trump said in a statement.
A flurry of media reports of late have revived speculations regarding the“lab leak” theory.
The UK’s MailOnline earlier published claims in a new scientific paper thatthe deadly virus strain shows clear signs of genetic manipulation.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also weiged in, claiming the Wuhanvirology lab at the centre of COVID-19 allegations has a secret militaryprogramme.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, he stated, had been carrying out projectsfor the Chinese armed forces which it concealed successfully from the WorldHealth Organisation mission that visited the city earlier this year todetermine the origins of the pandemic.
Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb,appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, weighed in on the debate,saying that China is able to provide “exculpatory” evidence proving thatCOVID did not leak from a lab, but has so far refused to do so.
He also cited evidence supposedly in favour of the theory after reportsthat three scientists who worked there were hospitalised in November 2019.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has vehemently rejected US media reportssuggesting that the employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology fellgravely ill right before the outbreak of COVID-19.
“Smear campaigns and blame shifting are making a comeback, and theconspiracy theory of ‘lab leak’ is resurfacing,” said the Chinese embassyin the US in a statement on 27 May.
Since it was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, morethan 168 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide, with atleast 3.5 million deaths reported. – Sputnik
