China’s state media has called out US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his claims about the origins of the new coronavirus.
The Global Times, a newspaper under the auspices of China’s ruling Communist Party, published an editorial on Sunday that rebuked Pompeo for floating “groundless accusations.”
Pompeo, who has presided over Washington’s hard-line China strategy of recent years, claimed on Sunday there was “enormous evidence” that a high-security lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan was the source of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Global Times suggested that Pompeo “should present this so-called evidence to the world, and especially to the American public who he continually tries to fool.”
“The truth is that Pompeo does not have any evidence, and during Sunday’s interview, he was bluffing,” read the editorial.
The secretary appeared confused over whether he was claiming that the virus was man-made or was of natural origin but accidentally escaped the lab. “Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point,” he said.
Reporters then reminded Pompeo that US intelligence had stated exactly the opposite, to which he replied: “That’s right. I agree with that.”
More confusion followed after Pompeo said in a radio interview that same day that “we don’t know precisely where it (the virus) began. We don’t know if it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Source: Sputnik
