Beijing accused Washington on Wednesday of damaging its own credibility after a US intelligence official said the agency believed the pandemic was “most likely” caused by a laboratory incident in Wuhan, China.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News on Tuesday that the Bureau has now established the source of Covid-19 as “a possible laboratory incident in Wuhan.”
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Chinese officials angrily denied the claim, calling it a smear campaign against Beijing.
“The United States is once again troubling the laboratory leak theory, which will not harm China, which will reduce its own credibility,” foreign ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a regular briefing on Wednesday.
US report on the Covid-19 pandemic
Wray’s comments came after reports earlier this week said the US Department of Energy had determined that a leak from a Chinese laboratory was the cause of the Covid-19 outbreak.
The department’s findings are important because of its work with a national network of laboratories, including some that conduct advanced biological research.
But other agencies in the US intelligence community believe that the virus appeared naturally in the world.
In an interview Tuesday, Wray also accused the Chinese government of trying to block U.S. efforts to investigate the cause of the pandemic.
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“The Chinese government … has done its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that is being done, the work that our US government and close foreign partners are doing,” Wray said.
“And that’s unfortunate for everybody.”
China is back
In a press briefing on Wednesday, Mao repeated China’s long-held and implausible claim that the virus escaped from a US military research laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
“The US must respect science and facts, cooperate with the World Health Organization as soon as possible, invite international experts to conduct traceability research in its country, and share the results of research with the international community,” he said.
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The scientific community considers it very important to determine the origin of the pandemic in order to fight or even prevent the next one.