More mudslinging by Washington: China Daily editorial

What does it take for the United States to initiate a new round of mudslinging at China on the origins of the novel coronavirus?

Not much. Merely vague surmises by The Wall Street Journal based on a US intelligence report supposedly citing intelligence gathered by an unspecified "international partner".

Although the Chinese Foreign Ministry immediately denied that three researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019, the report has been jumped on by those trying to cement the idea in people's minds that the lab is the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra did not name any country in his calling for a transparent probe into the origins of the novel coronavirus outbreak during the World Health Assembly on Tuesday, White House coronavirus adviser Andy Slavitt made no bones about it at a coronavirus task force briefing on the same day, urging the WHO and China to provide definitive answers for the global community, and calling for "a completely transparent process from China", despite that already being the case.

It was then US President Joe Biden's turn to mount the stage. On Wednesday, he ordered US intelligence officials to "redouble" their efforts to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including any possibility the trail might lead to the Wuhan institute.

Perhaps if the US was so adamant about investigating any trail that might lead to its own labs, there would be less cause to suspect it of trying to divert attention from itself.

China firmly supports international efforts to trace the origin of the novel coronavirus outbreak, as they can help deepen our knowledge of the virus and hopefully help prevent future pandemics. The full cooperation China provided the expert teams of the World Health Organization conducting field research in China speaks volumes about that.

Yet after a multinational WHO expert team concluded that a lab leak was "the least likely cause" of the outbreak following its field research in China in January, the previous US administration stridently questioned the professionalism and objectivity of the world health body, as that was contrary to its allegations.

Reportedly, the Biden administration recently shut down a State Department effort launched late in the Donald Trump administration aimed at "proving" the virus originated in the Wuhan lab due to the poor quality of its work.

That has directly exposed the administration to Republican complaints that the president is not being tough enough on China and wasting an opportunity to tighten the screw on China.

Like the allegations of its predecessor, the intimations of the Biden administration are propelled by prejudice and political need.

It should be a common call of the whole world that the research into the origins of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus must be based on facts and science, and it should be driven solely by scientific needs.