A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry suggested on Thursday the US military might have brought the coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak, doubling down on a war of words with Washington, SIA reports.
China has taken great offence at comments by US officials accusing it of being slow to react to the virus, first detected in Wuhan late last year, and of not being transparent enough. On Wednesday, US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said the speed of China's reaction to the emergence of the coronavirus had probably cost the world two months when it could have been preparing for the outbreak.
In a strongly worded tweet, written in English on his verified Twitter account, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said it was the United States that lacked transparency. Zhao, an avid and often combative Twitter user, did not offer any evidence for his suggestion that the US military might be to blame for the outbreak in China.
Earlier on Thursday, Zhao's fellow Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang criticised US officials for "immoral and irresponsible" comments that blamed Beijing's response to the coronavirus for worsening the global impact of the pandemic. Asked about O'Brien's comments, Geng told a daily news briefing in Beijing that such remarks by US officials would not help US epidemic efforts.
China's efforts to slow the spread had bought the world time to prepare against the epidemic, he added. "We wish that a few officials in the US would at this time concentrate their energy on responding to the virus and promoting cooperation, and not on shifting the blame to China."
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