US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday asked China for full transparency, as Washington stepped up its attack on Beijing on the coronavirus outbreak. China, on its part, insisted that it has been transparent and sharply criticised US officials who cast doubt on that.
“The Secretary stressed the need for full transparency and information sharing to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and prevent future outbreaks,” a US State Department statement said on the call between Pompeo and China’s top diplmate Yang Jiechi.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that Yang told Pompeo it was crucial for Washington and Beijing to properly manage their relations during the outbreak and that he hoped the United States would meet China halfway, focus on cooperation and help to promote their relationship.
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This came hours after US President Donald Trump said that his government is trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan in China.
“We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened,” Trump said at a White House news conference.
Asked if he had raised the subject in his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: “I don’t want to discuss what I talked to him about the laboratory, I just don’t want to discuss, it’s inappropriate right now.”Pompeo, in a Fox News Channel interview after Trump’s news conference, had said, “we know this virus originated in Wuhan, China,” and that the Institute of Virology is only a handful of miles away from the wet market.
“We really need the Chinese government to open up and help explain exactly how this virus spread,” said Pompeo.
The source of the virus remains a mystery. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said on Tuesday that US intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.
Fox News reported on Wednesday that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory not as a bioweapon, but as part of China’s effort to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States.
This report and others have suggested that the Wuhan lab where virology experiments take place and lax safety standards there led to someone getting infected and appearing at a nearby “wet” market, where the virus began to spread.
The virus has no far infected more than two million people across the globe and killed thousands.