‘Scapegoating China’: Beijing denounces US report on COVID origin

Beijing says the US intelligence community report is based on the presumption of guilt on the part of China and is ‘political manipulation’.

China has accused the United States intelligence community of “political manipulation” after a report accused Beijing of withholding key information about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. US President Joe Biden said on Friday that China was withholding “critical information” on the origins of the coronavirus after the US intelligence community said it did not believe it was a bioweapon – but remained split on whether it escaped from a lab. “The report by the US intelligence community shows that the US is bent on going down the wrong path of political manipulation,” China’s embassy in Washington said in a statement.