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Chinese President Xi Jinping. Getty
Around the same time last year, China escaped international scrutiny over the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other countries now want to re-probe China’s role, and a once mocked “lab leak” theory is back.
China’s initial success in preserving its reputation in the aftermath of the pandemic now appears tenuous.
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Around the same time last year, China believed it had escaped blame for the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which started on its soil.
At the World Health Assembly – the annual forum of member states of the World Health Organization – in May 2020, dozens of countries were expected to vote on a draft motion, led by Australia, to launch a investigation designed to hold China to account.
But China dominated the world that day, its diplomats instead securing a watered-down draft motion that only called for a “lessons learned” review, without attributing blame. President Xi Jinping has promised some sort of investigation, but designed it in a way that protects China from backlash.
After delays, the WHO sent a team of experts to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the new coronavirus was first discovered, to investigate the origin of the virus.
By the time they started, it had been over a year since an outbreak of respiratory disease around a wet market in Wuhan had alarmed the world. The virus had largely disappeared from China, and evidence would be difficult to come by even if the WHO team had carte blanche.
Throughout the trip, observers noticed how closely the WHO team was being managed by China, further limiting their ability to find anything surprising. After the trip, one of its members said China refused to provide key data when asked.
Nonetheless, when the WHO reported, it appeared to be final – the most thorough and independent investigation to date. His conclusions looked like a direct victory for China, giving few definitive answers that could embarrass Xi.
Another victory for China was that the WHO team said it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus had leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, appearing to put another nail in the coffin of what was then for the most part dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
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China seemed to have gotten off slightly, and other countries were concerned about their own urgent epidemics, almost completely absent from China itself by 2021.
But, months later, the tide is turning.
The theory of laboratory leaks has gained traction in recent weeks, with the Wall Street Journal uncovering a US intelligence report last month that three employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill more than a month before. that experts find out about the first COVID-19. case.
Days after the Journal report, President Joe Biden ordered a new investigation by the U.S. intelligence community into the origins of the virus. Biden has given 90 days to complete the investigation, meaning a report can be expected in late August.
British intelligence agencies are also contributing to the investigation, The Telegraph reported. While there are still no conclusions and China is adamant that there is nothing to see, the theory is no longer the preserve of internet freaks.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden and Xi in Beijing in December 2013. Lintao Zhang / Pool / Reuters
Elsewhere, countries that backed the watered-down draft motion last year are planning another try, which could prove far more damaging to Xi and China.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Alberto Nardelli and Josh Wingrove reported that the European Union – which helped bring forward last year’s motion – was ready to join the United States in a draft declaration calling for “progress on a transparent, evidence-based, expert-led WHO “. convened a Phase 2 study into the origins of Covid-19, without interference. “
The last words of this statement can be interpreted as a categorical rejection of the effort of the WHO which initially seemed to settle the matter.
Bloomberg said the statement is still in draft form and could still be amended. Any further investigation is likely to anger China and attack what initially seemed like a triumph.
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