China's ambassador to US urges focus on work rather than baseless claims

Efforts by some to politicize the coronavirus run contrary to the spirit of international cooperation required to defeat the pandemic, Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the United States, said on Sunday.

The ambassador pointed to the cooperation between China and the World Health Organization with a team of experts from the UN agency working in the central Chinese city of Wuhan with their Chinese counterparts on coronavirus scientific research

In particular, Cui drew attention to politically motivated claims in some quarters on COVID-19.

"I think people have to be careful not to make groundless accusations," he said in a wide-ranging interview on the Fareed Zakaria GPS program on the CNN network that largely focused on China's relationship with the US.

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The ambassador pointed to the cooperation between China and the World Health Organization with a team of experts from the UN agency working in the central Chinese city of Wuhan with their Chinese counterparts on coronavirus scientific research.

Cui said he has also participated in conferences on the pandemic held between Chinese and foreign experts. "They are real scientists. They are looking at the whole pandemic from the point of view of scientists, not any politicians," he said.

The ambassador said there's a certain need for more work to be done all over the world in order to really trace down the origin of the virus as there have been a number of media reports about early COVID-19 cases in other countries. This is required, "so the human race could be better prepared when we are faced with another virus again", he said.

Alongside that scientific work, Chinese vaccines have been used to vaccinate millions of people in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.

Reforms dividend

In the interview, Cui said that a few basic things about China must be kept in mind when talking about other countries' policies toward China.

China's development has been made possible by the hard work of the Chinese people and the country's more than 40 years of reform and opening-up, Cui said.

China is still a developing country with huge challenges ahead despite the great achievements made over the years, he said.

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On the handling of regional affairs, the Chinese ambassador believed that it will be "easier and more possible" for Asian neighbors to solve their issues without external involvement.

The ambassador's interview was aired the day before Lao Health Minister Bounkong Syhavong took possession of a batch of the China-donated vaccine from Sinopharm in the Lao capital Vientiane.

"Chinese vaccines have been proved for their safety and reliability," Bounkong said on Monday.

Xinhua, Xu Weiwei and Jan Yumul in Hong Kong contributed to this story