EU official joins call for cooperation on pandemic origins probe

China hits back after EU official joins call for cooperation on pandemic origins probe

A joint statement asks Beijing ‘to reconsider its decision to not engage in the WHO’s proposal for the next phase of the COVID-19 origins study.’

BY CARLO MARTUSCELLI

In a veiled warning to Brussels, Chinese officials urged Wednesday an end to "politicizing the issue of origins tracing" amid growing pressure on Beijing to allow for a more thorough investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

The statement, made by China's mission to the EU, comes after Research and Innovation Commissioner Mariya Gabriel added her name on Tuesday to a group of scientific experts and government representatives from the U.S., Australia and Japan. In a statement, they called on the "Chinese government to reconsider its decision to not engage in the World Health Organization's proposal for the next phase of the COVID-19 origins study."

Earlier in the month, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asked China to be “open and to cooperate” with its ongoing mission to pinpoint the origins of the virus, first detected in Wuhan. In particular, the WHO has asked China to provide raw data from early days of pandemic, which so far it has refused to do.

Recent months have also seen a renewed interest in the lab-leak origin theory for the coronavirus, which had first been dismissed as fringe.

China's mission to the EU defended Beijing's track record with the WHO, maintaining that it had cooperated with the health authority and that it opposed "the practice of political manipulation in the name of open and transparent scientific study."

It asked "relevant parties" to "stop using this issue to scapegoat others and shirk responsibility, and stop deliberately disrupting international cooperation on global origins tracing."