China accuses US of politicizing COVID-19 origins research

China went on the offensive Wednesday ahead of the release of a U.S. intelligence report on the origins of the coronavirus, bringing out a senior official to accuse the United States of politicizing the issue by seeking to pin the blame on China

BEIJING -- China went on the offensive Wednesday ahead of the release of a U.S. intelligence report on the origins of the coronavirus, bringing out a senior official to accuse the United States of politicizing the issue by seeking to blame China. Fu Cong, a Foreign Ministry director general, said at a briefing for foreign journalists that “scapegoating China cannot whitewash the U.S.” “If they want to baselessly accuse China, they better be prepared to accept the counterattack from China,” he said. China, the U.S. and the World Health Organization are entangled in a feud that centers on whether the virus that causes COVID-19 could have leaked from a lab in the city of Wuhan, where the disease was first detected in late 2019.