Coronavirus: China’s US ambassador Cui Tiankai takes veiled swipe at Donald Trump for politicising outbreak
- Ambassador Cui says little attention is being paid to scientists while politicians are preoccupied with ‘groundless accusations’
- Ambassador also defended Beijing’s handling of the disease, which has drawn fire from US president and others
Beijing’s envoy to Washington accused senior US politicians on Tuesday of ignoring scientific expertise in favour of pursuing “groundless accusations”, after US President Donald Trump said over the weekend that Beijing may be “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus outbreak.
“So little attention is paid to the views of the scientists,” Ambassador Cui Tiankai, appearing on a webcast event organised by Bloomberg News, said of the US.
“And some politicians are so preoccupied in their efforts for stigmatisation, for groundless accusations.”
Last week, Trump amplified unproven theories that the coronavirus may have emerged from – or even been bioengineered at – a virology lab near Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the outbreak first occurred.
Trump said that a line of inquiry was being actively pursued by his administration; US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently called on Beijing to let independent experts visit the lab to conduct an on-site investigation.
Trump’s interest in such an inquiry comes despite the acknowledgement by Dr Anthony Fauci, the administration’s top infectious disease expert, that recent research by leading virologists had found the contagion’s mutations were “totally consistent” with animal-to-human transmission.