China urges US to support intl anti-pandemic, origins tracing cooperation

BEIJING - A Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Monday said China hopes the United States will listen to the objective and rational voices of the international community and be a supporter rather than a saboteur of international cooperation in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the origins tracing of the coronavirus.

Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remark at a daily news briefing when asked to comment on recent remarks by Jeffrey Sachs, who heads the Lancet COVID-19 Commission.

Sachs said the global response to the pandemic has been wholly inadequate and one of the main geopolitical problems might have been the failure of the United States to work with China for global solutions. He also said "the United States should learn some good manners to work cooperatively with China, rather than trying to impose its will on that nation."

Wang told the press that a Swiss epidemiologist, Christian Althaus, had also said that China responded correctly to the pandemic and bought the rest of the world with one to two months to prepare.

Wang stressed that the COVID-19 response and studying its origins call for solidarity, cooperation and the spirit of science. However, some in the United States have time and again tried to politicize efforts on both fronts to deflect the blame for their own botched response.

"Such irresponsible behavior has not only cost the American people dearly, but also become the greatest obstacle in international cooperation in combating the virus and tracing the origins," Wang said.

"We hope that the United States can heed the objective and rational voice of the international community, seek solidarity instead of confrontation, take responsibility instead of resorting to blame-shifting, be guided by science instead of politics, and support international cooperation in fighting the virus and tracing the origins instead of disrupting relevant efforts," said the spokesperson.