US spreading political virus to save face: China Daily editorial

Despite its acknowledgment that the novel coronavirus was not developed as a biological weapon, and that Chinese officials did not have foreknowledge of SARS-CoV-2 before the outbreak was identified, the US intelligence report on the origins of the novel coronavirus still maintains there is the possibility of the virus leaking from a lab.

What is funny about the report is the fact that the entire world, including those involved in the task, knows that the mission is one for scientists to undertake not secret service agents.

The whole world knows what the US is doing, and the US knows that the entire world is clear about what its intelligence agencies are trying to achieve — to gather whatever they can grab as evidence to incriminate China for what the US has already deemed it is guilty of.

What is funnier is the fact that the entire world is also aware of what a bad job the US has done in containing the spread of the virus from the very beginning. Instead of doing what it should do by reflecting on the missteps and the mistakes it has made in planning its overall endeavors to keep the virus at bay, Washington is trying to deflect the world from its own failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the largest number of infections and the highest death toll among all countries, and also as one of the major sources for the spread of the virus to many other parts of the world, the US owes the international community an apology for its own responsibility in making the global pandemic what it is today.

However, for some US politicians, tracing of the virus is considered a magic wand that they believe will help them kill two birds with one stone. One is to shift the blame onto China as the origins of the virus, and another is to contain the rise of China, with the world forced to acknowledge China should bear sole responsibility for the pandemic.

Yet everyone knows full well that this is anything but the truth. The further the US goes down this road, the more humiliation it will suffer. The more the US tries to peddle its conspiracy theories against China, which has done a great job in largely keeping the virus at bay, the more the US will expose itself as a world power which has failed to fulfill its due responsibility in leading the global fight against the virus.

The only way the US can save face is to acknowledge its failure in its response to COVID-19, stop deflecting the blame for its own woes onto others, and contribute to global solidarity in the fight against the virus by allowing origins tracing to be conducted on its own territory.