Deflecting attention seen as aim of US push for virus origin probe

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that the United States cares nothing about facts or truth, but only about how to exhaust and smear China by launching an investigation over the so-called "lab leak theory" that presumes China is guilty.

Zhao made the remark after media reports cited informed sources as saying that the US intelligence agency still intends to release a report that makes up misleading conclusions over the COVID-19 origins, despite the lack of concrete proof, and that high-level US officials believe the real purpose is to hype up the origin investigation with the aim of exhausting China's diplomatic resources and increasing US leverage regarding China.

"If the media reports are true, the US report will be a statement of confession that shows that Washington is deliberately applying presumption of guilt," Zhao told reporters at a regular news briefing in Beijing.

According to the Global Times, Washington is ramping up pressure to coerce international scientists and to rope in allies and World Health Organization members to smear China over virus origins to beat the 90-day deadline for intelligence officials set by US President Joe Biden in May.

The newspaper said it was told by a source that the US administration will collude with the European Union, Australia and Japan to issue a statement on the second phase of investigation. The statement will urge the Chinese government to reflect on its decision to refuse to participate in the US-led second stage of the WHO virus origin tracing work and will call on China to "shoulder responsibility" and "take action", the source said.

The spokesman said that by going all out to smear China, the US is trying to deflect the international community's attention from Fort Detrick in the US and other bio labs it owns abroad.

"What is the US trying to hide?" Zhao said, urging the US to clear suspicion over these bio labs' relation to outbreaks of such diseases as plague, anthrax and Middle East respiratory syndrome.

The spokesman said that if the US has nothing to hide, it should invite the WHO to carry out a COVID-19 origins investigation in the US, particularly at Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina.