China reacted angrily to the Biden administration’s calls for a harder investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, by accusing the United States of hypocrisy and suggesting it needed to open its own biological laboratories to international inspection.
Speaking at a media briefing in Beijing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said that President Biden’s call for more scrutiny of the still-disputed origins of coronavirus was politically motivated and showed that the United States “does not care about facts and truth, nor is it interested in serious scientific origin tracing.”
Zhao, one of the country’s most notoriously hawkish diplomats, referenced a U.S. military location that has been baselessly linked to the coronavirus outbreak by Chinese media.
Describing Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., as “full of suspicion,” Zhao said the United States needed to open it up to international scrutiny. “There are more than 200 U.S. biological laboratories scattered around the world. How many secrets are there?” he said.