World Health Organization experts are scheduled to arrive in China this week to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic after agreeing to a “basic consensus” that the research will involve multiple countries, according to a senior Chinese diplomat.
“The two sides have reached a basic consensus on origin-tracing,” Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters. “It is highly likely that origin-tracing will involve many countries and localities, and WHO will need to pay similar visits to other countries and regions as the need arises.”
Chinese diplomats have cast doubt on the origins of the contagion since the virus paralyzed the global economy last March, including one claim that the United States Army somehow seeded the virus in China. The experience of the pandemic has turned into a yardstick for the Chinese Communist and the U.S. systems of governance, as Beijing drew international condemnation for censoring early warnings about the virus but subsequently boasted that the regime managed the health crisis better than Western countries.
“China supports scientists from various countries in conducting global scientific research on the origins and transmission routes of the novel coronavirus,” Zhao said, adding that Beijing had co-sponsored a World Health Assembly resolution related to the pandemic.
The WHA’s debate over the resolution angered Chinese officials, however, because Australian officials led the initiative with a call for a “weapons inspector” style investigation that would explore whether Chinese officials corrupted the WHO’s response to the pandemic in the early days of the crisis.
“We look forward to working closely with our [Chinese] counterparts on this critical mission to identify the virus source & its route of introduction to the human population,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted on Monday, adding that the team is scheduled to arrive in China on Thursday.
The breakthrough came just days after Tedros rebuked Beijing for failing to provide the “necessary permissions” for the experts to arrive.
“I’m very disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute, but had been in contact with senior Chinese officials,” he said last week.
A reporter from a Japanese outlet asked Zhao to explain why it took “China so long to agree on the foreign experts’ visit.” But the Chinese diplomat bristled and avoided the question.
“Earlier, I talked about China’s stance in a very detailed manner. Were you listening?” he said without giving a direct answer. “Please listen carefully before raising such a question next time.”
