China steps up criticism of ‘anti-science’ US over Covid-19 origins report

Foreign Minister Wang Yi says the report, due to be released this week, will serve Washington’s ‘political purposes’

Joe Biden ordered the intelligence services to carry out the investigation due to concerns about the WHO’s initial investigation in Wuhan

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WHO investigators visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology earlier this year. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:30pm, 25 Aug 2021

China has stepped up its criticism of the United States over an intelligence services report into the origins of Covid-19, insisting it will be used as a political weapon.

In a phone call with Dutch counterpart Sigrid Kaag on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the report was “bound to serve its own political purposes and seriously interfere with international anti-pandemic cooperation”.

He said the US was “anti-science” because it “has ignored and abandoned the research report worked out by WHO experts, and asked its intelligence agencies to come up with a so-called conclusion on origins tracing within a limited time”, according to a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry.

Wang’s comments came ahead of the release of the findings of the three-month investigation into the origins of the pandemic. The White House received the classified report on Tuesday.

In late May, US President Joe Biden ordered the US intelligence service to redouble its efforts to investigate the origin of the pandemic – including whether it came from a lab accident – and report back to him in 90 days.