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The
U.S. report is intended to resolve disputes among intelligence
agencies considering different theories about how the
coronavirus emerged, including a once-dismissed theory about a
Chinese laboratory accident.
"Scapegoating China cannot whitewash the U.S.," Fu Cong,
director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' arms
control department, told a briefing.
The U.S. report was due to be completed by a Tuesday deadline
but it would take a few days to prepare an unclassified version
for public release, the White House press secretary said this
week.
China has said a laboratory leak was highly unlikely, and it has
ridiculed a theory that coronavirus escaped from a lab in the
city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 infections emerged in late 2019,
setting off the pandemic.
China has instead suggested that the virus slipped out of a lab
in Fort Detrick, Maryland, in 2019.
"It is only fair that if the U.S. insists that this is a valid
hypothesis, they should do their turn and invite the
investigation into their labs," said Fu.
On Tuesday, China's envoy to the United Nations asked the head
of the World Health Organization for an investigation into U.S.
labs.
A joint WHO-Chinese team visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology
but the United States said it had concerns about the access
granted to the investigation.
When asked if China would stop talking about the Fort Detrick
laboratory if the U.S. report concluded the virus did not leak
from a Chinese lab, Fu said: "That is a hypothetical question,
you need to ask the U.S."
Fu said China was not engaged in a disinformation campaign.
(Reporting by Gabriel Crossley)
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