The United States and 13 allies have questioned the credibility of the World Health Organisation’s new report on the coronavirus pandemic, challenging China’s transparency about the origins of the contagion.
China restricted access to information about the virus in the early days of the pandemic, stoking American suspicions that the virus might have leaked out of a government-affiliated virology lab near the city where the contagion was first detected.
Chinese officials hope the WHO report will allay that allegation, but Beijing’s early success in manipulating the WHO has raised skepticism in democratic countries about the global health agency’s independence.
“We join in expressing shared concerns regarding the recent WHO-convened study in China,” the allies said in a joint statement released by Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team.
“With such an important mandate, it is equally essential that we voice our shared concerns that the international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples.
“Scientific missions like these should be able to do their work under conditions that produce independent and objective recommendations and findings.
“We share these concerns not only for the benefit of learning all we can about the origins of this pandemic, but also to lay a pathway to a timely, transparent, evidence-based process for the next phase of this study as well as for the next health crises,” the allies said.
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The WHO-China report assesses that it is “extremely unlikely” that the virus leaked out of the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed dissatisfaction with the report and downplayed the authority of the investigation.
A senior Chinese diplomat dismissed the “lab leak” hypothesis as one of many “lies against China” that the Chinese Foreign Ministry alleges have been told by Western officials.
“If you think about it, since the outbreak of COVID-19, how many lies and rumours and lies against China have been told by certain politicians, leaders and lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe, including those about China’s lab leak and making of the virus?” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, before suggesting that “there is still a big question mark over” a U.S. Army lab in Maryland.
That statement was signed by a mix of allies from around the world, with some notable absences. Three members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing bloc — Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom — subscribed, but New Zealand did not. London’s alignment revealed a split within the three Western European heavyweights, as Germany and France did not sign the statement.
Several NATO allies from the post-Soviet space joined the statement, including the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — Czechia, and Slovenia. Norway joined the statement, but Sweden — its Scandinavian neighbor, already embroiled in multiple disputes with China — did not.
Denmark, Israel, Japan, and South Korea also signed the document.
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