China dismisses FBI’s COVID-19 origin theory

China refuted on Wednesday renewed theories by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray, tracing Covid-19 origins to a laboratory leak in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the United States (US) should “stop turning origin tracing into something about politics and intelligence, and stop disrupting social solidarity and origins cooperation.”

Ning also referred to the continuous Chinese efforts to be open and transparent in order to assist the scientific efforts to pinpoint the pandemic’s origins. China has made important contributions to global virus tracing research, the spokeswoman emphasized.

Wray, on the other hand, said the Chinese government has been “doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate” efforts done by the U.S. and its international partners aiming at detecting the virus’s origins.

A report published by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday has mentioned that the U.S. Energy Department had assessed with low confidence that an unintended lab leak triggered the pandemic. Other four national agencies still hold conflicting opinions about the origins.

Mao Ning expressed her scepticism regarding the conclusions reached by the American U.S. Department, citing “the poor track record of fraud and deception of the U.S. intelligence community”.

John Kirby, White House national security spokesman stated on Monday the American government has not reached a definitive consensus on the origins of the virus.