China wants to be fairer about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, U. S. Ambassador said. U. S. Labor Force in China on Monday, Feb. 27, following reports that the U. S. Department of Energy was in China. The U. S. Department of Health and Prevention concluded that the pandemic was likely due to a leak from a laboratory.
Nicholas Burns, speaking via video link at a U. S. Chamber of Commerce event. The U. S. government said it is mandatory to pressure China to play a more active role at the World Health Organization (WHO) if the U. N. fitness firm is strengthened.
China must also “be fairer about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the COVID-19 crisis,” Burns said, referring to the central Chinese city where the first human cases were reported in December 2019.
The Wall Street Journal first reported Sunday that the U. S. Department of Energy is being able to do so. The U. S. government had concluded that the pandemic was likely due to a leak from a Chinese lab, an assessment Beijing denies.
The branch issued its judgment with “little confidence” in a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress, the Journal said, mentioning other people who had read the intelligence report.
Four other U. S. agencies, as well as a national intelligence panel, still indicated that COVID-19 was likely the result of herbal transmission, while two are undecided, the Journal reported.
The Energy Department responded to a request for comment.
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday that there is a “variety of opinions in the intelligence community” about the origins of the pandemic.
“Several of them said they just didn’t have enough information,” Sullivan told CNN.
When asked to comment on the report, which was shown through other US media, China’s Foreign Ministry referred to a WHO-China report indicating an herbal origin of the pandemic, most likely bats, than a laboratory leak.
“Some parties avoid repeating the ‘lab leak’ narrative, avoid defaming China and avoid politicizing the tracing of the origin factor,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said.
Burns said on the House floor that it’s a complicated time for U. S. -China relations. The U. S. and China are looking to deflect blame after the U. S. military has been in charge of the U. S. military in China. The U. S. Supreme Court shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon moving across the U. S. mainland this month. U. S.
“We are now in that surreal moment where the Chinese, who I think lost the ball in the debate globally, lost their influence and credibility in the world for what they did, are now blaming us,” Burns said.
“It’s a little Orwellian. And it’s kind of frustrating, because I think everyone knows the fact here.
China reacted angrily when the U. S. military shot down the balloon on Feb. 4, saying it used to monitor weather situations and had deviated from its trajectory.
Burns added that it was the legal responsibility of the United States to its military strength “in and around Taiwan” to ensure that the self-governing island claimed through Beijing has the ability to deter any kind of “offensive action” through China.
“It’s also. . . our duty to galvanize the rest of the world to make sure the Chinese get away with coercion or intimidation in front of Taiwan itself,” he said.
– Rappler. com