On August 25, the San Francisco Examiner published an article by Consul General Wang Donghua entitled "The Harm of Politicizing Covid-19 Origin-Tracing" . The full text is as follows:
For over a year, the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging on, severely impacting the global economy and subjecting the people in every country to untold sufferings. In view of the surge of the coronavirus and its variants recently in many countries, the international society needs to be prepared for a long-term fight. Origin-tracing is an important link in fighting all pandemics to the extent that it will help prevent and tackle more effectively similar public health emergencies in the future, and therefore deserve high attention of the international society.
Just like fighting the pandemic, origin-tracing is a serious matter of science which should be conducted through global cooperation by scientists and medical experts in pursuit of scientific conclusions based on facts and evidences. This is the only way to find out the true sources of the virus and block further transmission routes as soon as possible.
However, there are people, including some American politicians, who do not know about or believe in science. Instead of fighting the pandemic at its outbreak, they have been bent on going down the road of politicization of the pandemic and stigmatization of the virus. Recently they have fabricated the "lab leak" theory and turned origin-tracing into their political tool. It is crystal clear to any one with common sense that they are doing this for their own political purpose in order to shift to others the responsibility for their inability to respond to COVID-19 in a right way. The same purpose motivated the decision to let their intelligence agencies take over origin-tracing, set a 90-day deadline for conclusions, and even go so far as to exert pressure on and coerce scientists to support their "lab leak" theory. Such acts of politicizing of pandemic-fighting and origin-tracing have severely interrupted and damaged international cooperation on origin-tracing research.
Political manipulation of the pandemic and origin-tracing has wreaked havoc in the US in many aspects. Firstly, the number of infectious cases in the US is more than 360 million, the highest around the world. The death toll is over 620,000, more than the total Americans lost in all wars since WWI. This is the consequences arising from the American politicians' indifference to human lives and their indulgence in political maneuvers. Secondly, the US economy has been severely impacted and its economic recovery still has a long way to go. Thirdly, politicization has instigated Asia Hate and exacerbated racial discrimination and social fragmentation in the US. There has been an obvious increase in the number of incidents of Asian Americans being discriminated and even threatened because of their ethnicity. Fourthly, politicization has severely damaged the relations between China and the US and negatively affected their cooperation in major regional and international affairs, not to mention impediments to the US' own COVID-19 response and economic recovery. As Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet the prominent medical journal, noted, the conspiracies about the origins of COVID-19 are spreading like viruses, and may cause impacts as severe as what the pandemic has done.
Ever since the early stage of the outbreak, China has upheld its open and transparent attitude toward origin-tracing and always adhered to the scientific approach when participating in global scientific cooperation on origin-tracing. China has twice invited WHO experts to China for origin-tracing research. In March 2021, China and the WHO released the joint report with authoritative, professional and science-based conclusions. They pointed out that the pathway of lab leak is extremely unlikely. They also recommended further research on earlier cases around the world. Currently, the situation is that the earliest case in many countries predated that in China. The Chinese side has made its due efforts and contributions. Other major countries, especially the country with the most cases of infection and death, should also fulfill their obligations and invite international experts for origin-tracing research in their countries.
The virus keeps rebounding and spreading at the moment. Continued politicizing of the pandemic means continued disruption of the origin-tracing process. This is irresponsible to all people including the American people. It is hoped that the relevant politicians will stop manipulation of the origin tracing, support international collaboration for the origin tracing in the spirit of science, so that the origin of the coronavirus could be discovered sooner, and the international society could respond better to and win an early victory over the virus.
