There’s no dearth of conspiracy theories flying around about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, from reckless speculation in news reports to silly nonsense spread by social media, and they’re all best left ignored at a time of global panic and paranoia. But when a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry jumps on the tinfoil-hat bandwagon to accuse the US military of unleashing a deadly disease that has infected well over 140,000 people in more than 120 countries, it begs closer scrutiny to understand what exactly is going on. Zhao Lijian set off a storm this week by taking to Twitter to suggest there was something more to the story after the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention admitted, without giving a time frame, that some influenza deaths in America had turned out to be Covid-19 cases. “When did patient zero begin in the US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be the US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” The incendiary tweet echoed a Canada-based conspiracy website’s unsubstantiated claims that America was the real source of the coronavirus, apparently linking it to the US Army’s participation in the Military World Games, which drew competitors from more than 100 countries to Wuhan last October before the Chinese city became ground zero for the pandemic. On the face of it, China has just accused the US of a jaw-dropping act of war, prompting the State Department to summon Beijing’s ambassador to Washington for a dressing down. Of course, Zhao has a reputation for being a bit of a loose cannon with a trigger-happy tweet finger , so Beijing can conveniently explain it away as rogue commentary in a personal capacity rather than an official statement. But it’s also obvious he would not dare go so far without authorisation from higher up. Just look at how Geng Shuang, Zhao’s foreign ministry colleague, responded when asked for an explanation: “You wonder if Zhao’s opinions represent those of the Chinese government. I think you first should ask if remarks by certain US senior officials that vilify China represent the official stance of the US government.” And there you have it. It’s a tit-for-tat, zero-sum blame game the two countries are playing to their mutual detriment, instead of joining forces to wipe out a common enemy that recognises no political or geographical boundaries. Singapore ‘idiot’s guide’ to coronavirus crisis control: don’t do it like Hong Kong China is at pains to point out that the source of the coronavirus is yet to be conclusively established by international experts, and that the assumption it must have first been transmitted to humans from all manner of wildlife being sold at a wet market in Wuhan is still to be proven. That’s why it bristles at the likes of US President Donald Trump calling it a “foreign virus”, or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Republican leaders provocatively labelling it as the “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese coronavirus”. Remember the other popular conspiracy theory that China may have engineered the coronavirus as a bioweapon at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, which has been debunked by scientists who studied its genetic make-up? Zero Hedge, a right-leaning financial blog popular among Wall Street insiders, was banned from Twitter last month for amplifying the same theory and doxxing a Chinese scientist from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, whom it identified as the man responsible for weaponising the coronavirus. Isn’t it only fair that Twitter should apply the same rules to Zhao and ban him for “spreading misinformation” about the pandemic? Why are Chinese officials even using Twitter in the first place when the platform is prohibited in China? Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post