Advertisement
Coronavirus pandemic
WorldUnited States & Canada

China ‘risks international isolation’ over investigation into coronavirus origin: Biden aide

  • US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US will ‘get to the bottom of how this virus came into the world and who has accountability for that’
  • China has rejected the theory that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the first cases were reported

Reading Time:1 minute
Why you can trust SCMP
99+
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Photo: AFP via Getty Images / TNS
Bloomberg

China will risk international isolation if it fails to allow a “real” investigation on its territory into the origins of the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.

Sullivan’s comments follow last week’s call by Group of Seven (G7) leaders including US President Joe Biden for another investigation into how the virus originated. Biden last month ordered the US intelligence community to “redouble” its efforts to determine where the coronavirus came from and to report back in 90 days.

The goal is to present China with “a stark choice: Either they will allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where this came from, or they will face isolation in the international community,” Sullivan said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

Advertisement

The US will continue pressing in cooperation with its allies and partners “until we get to the bottom of how this virus came into the world and who has accountability for that.”

05:08

Nature or lab leak? Why tracing the origin of Covid-19 matters

Nature or lab leak? Why tracing the origin of Covid-19 matters

China has rejected the theory that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the first cases were reported.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Select Voice
Choose your listening speed
Get through articles 2x faster
1.25x
250 WPM
Slow
Average
Fast
1.25x