China rejected a call from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday to conduct a new investigation on its territory into the origins of COVID-19, asserting the need for a "scientific" rather than a "political" approach. Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu stated, "We oppose politicizing origin research and abandoning the joint report between China and the WHO published after the visit of international experts to Wuhan in January."
On Thursday, the WHO urged all countries to publish "all data regarding the virus," particularly directed at China, where the possibility of the coronavirus leaking from a laboratory in Wuhan, where it first appeared in late 2019, remains.
An international expert team sent by the WHO visited Wuhan in January 2021, and their report, prepared in collaboration with Chinese experts, did not come to a definitive conclusion regarding the virus's origins.
In response to the WHO on Friday, Beijing reaffirmed its position defended for months, stating that the initial joint investigation was sufficient and that requests for additional data were motivated by hidden political agendas. Ma Zhaoxu noted, "We support scientific research," adding, "We oppose politicizing origin research and abandoning the joint report between China and the WHO."
The study indicated that the most likely scenario is the virus's transmission from bats to humans through an intermediary animal and confirmed that it is "extremely unlikely" the virus originated from a laboratory. The Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister rejected the WHO's requests for additional investigations, stating that "the results and recommendations of the joint report have been recognized by the international community and the scientific community." He added that "future research should proceed based on this report" and insisted that "we should not start from scratch again."
