China slams US ‘scapegoating’ before COVID origin report release

China decries the US ‘politicisation’ of efforts to trace the origin of the virus ahead of the release of a US intelligence report.

China has criticised the “politicisation” by the United States of efforts to trace the origin of the coronavirus, demanding a US military laboratory be investigated, shortly before the release of a US intelligence community report on the virus. The US report is intended to resolve disputes among intelligence agencies considering different theories about how the coronavirus emerged, including a once-dismissed theory about a Chinese laboratory accident. “Scapegoating China cannot whitewash the US,” Fu Cong, director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ arms control department, told a news briefing on Wednesday.