Beijing has warned that the US should be prepared to face consequences if it wants to ‘baselessly target China’ over the origins of COVID-19 research. Ahead of the release of US intelligence report on the origins of coronavirus, Fu Cong, a director-general in China’s Foreign Ministry said that ‘scapegoating China’ will not ‘whitewash the US’.

“If they want to baselessly accuse China, they better be prepared to accept the counterattack from China,” the Associated Press cited Cong as saying. The warning comes ahead of the release of the US intelligence report, the probe for which was ordered by US President Joe Biden.

A report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and China in March this year had concluded that the Wuhan ‘lab-leak theory’ was ‘extremely unlikely’. Shortly later, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said that there was a ‘premature push’ to rule out the theory. 

In May, Biden ordered a 90-day probe into the origins of COVID-19. However, according to the latest reports in the US media, the probe has remained ‘inconclusive’ as China blocked access to foreign investigators, including a team of WHO researchers.

China points towards Fort Detrick’s infectious disease institute

Cong, however, denied that China was engaging in a misinformation campaign. “If Dr Tedros believes that we should not rule out the hypothesis of a lab leak, well, he knows where to go… He needs to go to the US labs,” he said, AP quoted.

China has, on several occasions, demanded that quite like Wuhan, which has been visited twice by WHO officials, Fort Detrick’s infectious disease institute should also be under scanner for probing the origins of coronavirus.