China’s Ambassador to America Cui Tiankai repeated an increasingly vocal demand out of Beijing on Sunday for the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) to treat the United States as a potential origin location for the Chinese coronavirus, despite no scientific evidence suggesting this is possible.
The Chinese coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. The first confirmed case of Chinese coronavirus, according to leaked Chinese documents revealed by the South China Morning Post, was identified on November 17, 2019. No evidence exists anywhere in the world for a confirmed novel coronavirus case emerging anywhere else in the world before this date.
The Chinese Communist Party has not confirmed – or denied – the legitimacy of the South China Morning Post leak and does not consider that date a viable origin point in investigating where the virus first began infecting human beings. Chinese government officials have pointed to reports suggesting that early cases of the virus occurred in places like Italy and Brazil, but those reports do not specify a date before November 17.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons have also claimed, in their official capacity, that the Chinese coronavirus originated at a U.S. Army facility in Maryland, and that Washington covered up the initial outbreak by diagnosing cases as incidents of e-cigarette lung injury. Beijing has never provided any evidence for this claim or explained how a highly contagious coronavirus infection could pass for a lung injury, which is not contagious and does not require patient isolation.
A team of microbiologist investigators from the W.H.O. is currently in Wuhan, where the virus originated, seeking clues as to where the virus first began infecting humans. As the Chinese government has admitted to destroying all early evidence of the virus in the city, investigators have yet to reveal they have found any substantive information, but have insisted their year-late visit to Wuhan was “still worth” making the time.
Ambassador Cui, speaking to CNN on Sunday, pressured the W.H.O. to send similar delegations to the United States.
“[T]here have been a number of media reports about early cases in other places in the world. So there’s a certainly [sic] need for more tracing to be done all over the world in order to really trace down the origin of the virus,” Cui told the network. “So the human race could be better prepared when we are faced with another virus again. So please do not politicize the whole issue. Please let the scientists do their professional job.”
Asked if China would allow the W.H.O. team full access to relevant sites in Wuhan, Cui replied, “They are already in Wuhan. They have been in Wuhan for quite a few days. My questions [sic] is, will they be allowed to come here [America] to do the same thing?”
Cui did not offer any evidence for suggesting that the W.H.O. team visit the United States or mention the existence of any facts that would lead scientists to believe that the virus originated in America.
In the same interview, Cui insisted, “I think when people make accusations, they have to prove these accusations.”
Faced with another topic – the overwhelming evidence of extensive, systematic human rights atrocities committed by his government against ethnic minority people in western Xinjiang, China – Cui claimed that all evidence was “misinformation” and that China’s sprawling concentration camps for Muslim minorities were “vocational training centers,” the official explanation of the Communist Party.
Cui’s message urging scientists to treat the United States as a potential coronavirus origin location has become routine from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which holds daily briefings for friendly journalists. The state-run propaganda outlet Global Times noted that spokesman Wang Wenbin’s demand for a W.H.O. investigation into America that day was the third such message that week.
“We hope that relevant parties, like what China has done, adopt a positive attitude in tracing the origins and invite W.H.O. experts to conduct origin studies, contributing to their efforts on the global fight against the pandemic,” Wang asserted, referring to the United States.
“The W.H.O. mission’s visit to China this time is part of global science cooperation on origin-tracing. It is a first stop rather than the end,” Wang insisted.
Wang once again pressured the W.H.O. to send an investigative team to other countries on Monday.
“More and more facts have shown that the virus and epidemics had been present in multiple places as early as in the second half of 2019,” Wang said. “A comprehensive analysis of relevant information and systematic visits to relevant sites will help draw a scientific, objective and comprehensive conclusion on the source of the virus.”
Wang ominously added that Chinese “experts” had come to some form of “consensus” with the W.H.O. team, without elaborating.
The Global Times supported the message from Beijing last week with an article citing pro-communist “experts” who also insisted that the virus likely did not originate in China, despite all available evidence suggesting so.
“The U.S. has the most diverse virus strains, which make it the most suitable place for conducting study of origins,” one “expert” said. Another warned the W.H.O., “Wuhan is just a stop for virus origin tracing, and those experts should not expect to find an answer here.”