China refuted a joint statement made by the United States and 13 other countries expressing “concerns” over the World Health Organization report on studies into the origins of COVID-19.

The statement was evidence of certain countries’ disrespect for science and political manipulation of the origin-tracing issue, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a daily news briefing. 

Answering a relevant question, Hua said politicizing the origin-tracing issue was immoral and unpopular and will only hinder global cooperation in the study of the origins of COVID-19, jeopardize anti-pandemic cooperation and cost more lives, which runs counter to the wishes of the international community.

“These countries should engage in some self-reflection and ask themselves, how has their own anti-epidemic work gone? What have they done for international cooperation in the fight against the pandemic?” Hua said on March 31.

Origin-tracing is a matter of science, which should be jointly conducted by scientists all over the world and should not be politicized.

The 17 international experts who came to China were all selected by the WHO. Most are from Western countries including the US, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. China did not raise any objection to the makeup of the team. In fact, the Chinese government did a lot of administrative, technical and logistic support work.

“Those outsiders who never took part in the joint study are now accusing the team of being interfered. This is highly frivolous and irresponsible. They want to muddy the waters by making up and spreading rumors to achieve their hidden political purposes. We can all see this very clearly,” she said.

Some Western countries are really used to preconceived ideas, she added in answering another question. “Whenever they fail to achieve their goals and see conclusions that are not what they want, they will make accusations of lack of independence, openness and transparency.

“I hope that the relevant people can still show some respect for facts and give up such a bad practice or attempt of political manipulation,” she said.

While answering a question on further investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Hua said China’s attitude has always been open, transparent, candid and responsible, and the joint mission already visited various biosafety laboratories including the WIV.

“We hope the US and relevant countries can work with WHO in a science-based way like China did,” she said.

When asked about laboratories in other countries, including in the US, Hua asked, “When will the US biological base at Fort Detrick, with a big question mark over it, allow international experts in for a visit?”

It seems that the US media have avoided covering this issue since the outbreak of the epidemic. In June 2019, there were reports in the US media about this, “but later on we could hardly see any”.

“Why is that? Haven’t you American media always had a good tradition of getting to the bottom of things, following the facts, and doing in-depth investigative reports? Why do the media, which are so good at this kind of investigative reporting, now remain silent?” she said.

During the video press conference on March 30, the head of the WHO joint mission Peter Ben Embarek also mentioned that the virus could have been present outside of China in the early stage. Studies published in other countries also suggest the possibility of earlier transmission and more efforts should be made to study these papers.

Hua said “the joint mission pointed out that the origin-tracing work should be based on a global perspective, and not be limited to a single region”.