Ahead of the release of a United State intelligence report on the origins of COVID-19, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin has taken the offensive.

Addressing questions posed during a regular press conference on Tuesday (August 24), Wang declared that, in tracing the origins of COVID-19, “we need science, not intelligence”.

He added: “Relying on the intelligence community for the origins study is in itself not scientific. The US intelligence community has a poor record in history. It is impossible that it would draft the report based on facts and truth. This report will be nothing but a patchwork of so-called evidence based on predetermined conclusions, with the aim of shifting blames onto others. It is not credible at all.”

Wang said any study of the origins of COVID-19 required solidarity, rather than “efforts at framing others”, and that the purpose of tracing the origins is to protect the lives and health of people in all countries, rather than “to shift blames, suppress rivals and serve one’s selfish interests”.

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Said Wang: “Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the US has been politicising the fight against the disease, resulting in more infections and deaths in the US than elsewhere. A heavy price is paid by the American people. Now, for ulterior political purposes, the US has resorted to its intelligence agencies for the so-called investigation of the origins of COVID-19, which has undermined international cooperation on origins study.”

He added: “This is widely questioned and opposed by the international community. We urge the US side to bear in
mind the lives and health of its own people and people around the world, stop politicisation and return to the track of science-based origins study at an early date.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been ongoing speculation around the origin of the outbreak, with some attributing it to the sale of meat in a Chinese wet market, to a security breach at a virus research lab in Wuhan.