US envoy says China must cooperate with WHO, be 'more honest' about origins of COVID-19 pandemic

The United States ambassador to China said Beijing must play a more active role in the World Health Organization. The envoy also said Beijing should be more “honest” about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In video remarks at an event by the US Chamber of Commerce on Monday, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussed the importance of convincing China to play a more active part in the World Health Organization should the WHO be strengthened. Burns added that Beijing must also be “more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan”, referring to the city where the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in December 2019.

Burns also said that this remains a challenging time for relations between China and the United States as Beijing seeks to deflect blame after Washington shot down a Chinese spy balloon that was sighted in US airspace.

Burns’s comments follow the report by the Wall Street Journal that the US Energy Department concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic likely came from a leak from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan. Beijing has denied the assessment. The conclusion by the department was in “low confidence” in a classified intelligence report that was provided to the White House and several members of Congress.

Four other US agencies and a national intelligence panel still conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic was likely from a natural transmission, while two agencies remain undecided, according to the Wall Street Journal.

On Sunday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said there were “a variety of views in the intelligence community” on the origins of COVID-19. Sullivan told CNN that several have said there was not enough information.

Sullivan also stressed that US President Joe Biden repeatedly asked the intelligence community to find out as much information as possible on how the pandemic began.

“President Biden specifically requested that the national labs which are part of the Energy Department, be brought into this assessment because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here,” said Sullivan.

The WHO this month shut down a report that suggested that the organization abandoned its investigation into the origins of the virus, pledging to do everything possible “until we get the answer.”