South China Morning Post
Advertisement
Advertisement
Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei province, during the visit by a WHO team tasked with investigating the origins of Covid-19, on February 3. Photo: Reuters
Opinion
Sun Xi
Sun Xi

No one wins in the West’s politicisation of the Covid-19 origin probe to attack China

  • The US and its allies have too casually dismissed the findings by a joint WHO-China team that found no evidence of a lab leak
  • The important work of tracing the virus’ origin should be a matter for science, not politicians who appear bent on pinning the blame on China
Sun Xi
Sun Xi
Why you can trust SCMP

The Covid-19 pandemic has become one of the deadliest in recent history and is still evolving. As of now, it has infected around 180 million people and caused more than 3.8 million deaths. Moreover, it has caused significant social and economic disruption globally and triggered political distrust and tensions.

It is necessary to find the origins of the virus, but the tracing should be a matter of science rather than geopolitics.
First, the joint WHO-China investigation should be respected. The Covid-19 virus was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, but that does not necessarily mean the virus originated in China.

As we know, the first Aids patient was identified in the United States in 1981, but scientists later traced the origin of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) back to chimpanzees and the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in Africa.

The joint team from the World Health Organization and China concluded its four-week field trip study on February 9. The joint research report it produced supported the natural outbreak theory and clearly stressed it was “extremely unlikely” that the Covid-19 virus was leaked from a Chinese lab.

05:08

Nature or lab leak? Why tracing the origin of Covid-19 matters

Nature or lab leak? Why tracing the origin of Covid-19 matters

It goes without saying that China welcomed such a conclusion, while those who claimed China was to blame for the outbreak were not satisfied. However, if we cannot trust the WHO, the top global agency responsible for public health, who else can we rely on?

Second, double standards should be discouraged. Some public figures in the West, including former US president Donald Trump, called the Covid-19 virus the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus”.

By that logic, shouldn’t the swine flu virus (H1N1) be renamed the “American virus” as it was first detected in the US in early 2009? One study estimated that between 11 per cent and 21 per cent of the global population were infected during the 2009 pandemic. Should the world then ask the US for compensation?
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly called for further investigation into the pandemic’s origin. This week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the US would “work together” with its allies to “exercise the necessary pressure on China” in the investigation, urging Beijing to be a “participant” and provide “transparent data and access”.

However, a recent study by the US National Institutes of Health suggests that the Covid-19 virus could have been present in the United States as early as December 2019. Therefore, if a new investigation is indeed necessary, the primary focus should be on America instead of China.

‘Covid-19 may never go away’: Singapore looks to live with virus as endemic

Third, we should welcome cooperation rather than confrontation. Mislabelling Covid-19 as a “Chinese virus” has sadly led to xenophobic violence targeting Chinese and other Asian people in the US and other Western societies. Recently, the G7 nations at their summit in England were united in their criticism of China, so more confrontation can be expected in the future.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. While China has been transformed and made much progress under the party’s rule since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the distrust and hostility between the West and China may never disappear.

Ideologically, many people in the West fear the Communist Party. Most do not comprehend the Chinese political system. Culturally, some people deliberately misunderstand the Chinese nation and people. Unfortunately, Covid-19 has deepened the confrontation between China and the West.

This global crisis, in fact, offers a valuable opportunity for both sides to cooperate. Optimistically speaking, it is never too late to join hands, especially when the whole world continues to suffer from the pandemic.

First we must stop politicising the tracing of the Covid-19 origin, because this scientific work concerns the survival of humankind and should not become a geopolitical game among major powers.

Sun Xi, a China-born alumnus of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, is an independent commentary writer based in Singapore

46