As U.S. calls for focus on covid origins, China repeats speculation about U.S. military base
By Katerina Ang and Adam Taylor
May 27, 2021
China reacted angrily to the Biden administration’s calls for a harder investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, by accusing the United States of hypocrisy and suggesting it needed to open its own biological laboratories to international inspection.
Speaking at a media briefing in Beijing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said that President Biden’s call for more scrutiny of the still-disputed origins of coronavirus was politically motivated and showed that the United States “does not care about facts and truth, nor is it interested in serious scientific origin tracing.”
Zhao, one of the country’s most notoriously hawkish diplomats, referenced a U.S. military location that has been baselessly linked to the coronavirus outbreak by Chinese media.
