Washington can gain credibility only by verification

A consultative conference of the state parties to the Biological Weapons Convention concluded in Geneva on Friday. The theme of the meeting was to consider the compliance of the United States. Russia presented evidence that the United States was in breach of the convention, and other states parties raised a series of questions on that as well. The US defended itself by repeating the same old platitudes it has employed in the past.

On some key questions, in particular, how many virus samples and how much biological data the US has transported from abroad, for what purposes, and whether it conducted research abroad that was banned in the US, the US side either denied them, dodged them, or deflected the topic.

For decades, the US has carried out biological military activities around the world under the banner of promoting public health and other benign purposes. It has also cobbled together a narrative of "US-led cooperation for the good of the world" in an attempt to bully other countries into endorsing its bio-military activities.

The US has smeared the international community's reasonable doubts as "subjective assumptions" and "groundless rumors", and dismissed them with "I can check myself". Such a double standard and arrogant attitude expose the US' gangster logic: I can investigate others, but no parties can probe me.

The US once strongly urged the international community to establish the verification mechanism of the BWC as soon as possible. However, in 2001, it exclusively withdrew from the negotiations for a verification protocol for the BWC on the grounds that it harms the security and economic interests of the US and that biological activities are not verifiable.

Up to now, the US has been exclusively blocking the resumption of relevant negotiations for the same reason and turning a deaf ear to the international community's demand for an investigation of it.

Despite the closing of the Geneva conference, the international community's suspicions about the US' biological military activities are far from over. The US must respond to the international community's common concerns.