A Chinese government official sent a letter to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) criticizing his bill to declassify information regarding the origins of COVID-19 and imploring the Missouri senator to withdraw it from consideration.
Li Xiang, a counselor with the Chinese Embassy in the United States, demanded Hawley retract the bill and accused the lawmaker of politicizing COVID-19 and placing blame for the pandemic solely on the Chinese government. The letter comes in response to Hawley’s COVID-19 Origin Act, which seeks to declassify information related to the pandemic so that lawmakers can avoid a similar incident in the future.
LAWMAKERS DEMAND BIDEN DECLASSIFY COVID ORIGINS INVESTIGATIONS
“[The bill] falsely claimed that the COVID-19 corona virus originated from Wuhan Institute of Virology, accuses China of blocking international investigations, refusing to share information and lacking transparency etc. and required the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of COVID-19,” Li wrote. “China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this.”
Hawley responded to the letter on Thursday, brushing it off with a laugh.
“The Chinese government wrote to me and demanded I withdraw my Covid origins bill,” he tweeted. “Hahaha. Not a chance.”
The Chinese official specifically targeted Hawley’s bill for stating a “reason to believe” the pandemic originated inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, rejecting that theory as being “extremely unlikely.” Li pointed to a report by the World Health Organization that concluded a lab leak was improbable, citing evidence that was gathered from several field trips to the Wuhan institute.
Li also criticized Hawley for his claims that China has not been transparent about its investigations into the origins of COVID-19, arguing the Chinese government has shown a “scientific, professional, serious and responsible attitude from the very beginning.”
“[That] is just an excuse to politicize and stigmatize China,” Li wrote. “The move by the US Congress just shows that the US is going further and further down the wrong path of political manipulation. … It is an attempt to shift the blame from its own failure to fight the epidemic.”
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Hawley introduced the measure in the Senate last week, reviving his previous efforts to investigate the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill passed the Senate on March 1 in a unanimous vote.
The Missouri senator reintroduced the bill after a report from the Department of Energy concluded that the coronavirus likely originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, prompting an uproar from several conservatives who voiced similar theories early on in the pandemic.