Washington, (EFE).- The United States ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, said Monday that Beijing should be more honest about the origin of covid-19 if it wants to work with its government.
“China should be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the crisis” of the covid-19, said the diplomat during a virtual event of the US Chamber of Commerce, as reported by the channel CNN.
The ambassador, who has been in office for a little less than a year, added that both the Chinese balloon that the US described as a “spy” and the Xi Jinping government’s position on the war in Ukraine are the most pressing issues. important for the United States with respect to the Asian country.
His comments come a day after the US Department of Energy joined other federal agencies, including the FBI, in concluding that Covid-19 “most likely” originated in a Chinese laboratory, according to a report. report from The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper noted that four other US departments continue to believe that the coronavirus outbreak was probably the result of natural transmission, while two others remain undecided.
The Department of Energy’s conclusion is the result of reading new intelligence data. Said department has 17 national laboratories, some of which carry out advanced biological research, according to the New York newspaper.
Without confirming that article, the spokesman for the White House Security Council, John Kirby, stressed this Monday that within the Administration there is no consensus on the origin of the pandemic and that Washington wants “facts” to be able to avoid other pandemics. in the future.
US President Joe Biden called at the start of his term, in May 2021, for the intelligence community to investigate how it was triggered.
Biden “wants facts. He wants the entire government to look for those facts. That’s what we’re doing and we’re not there yet. When we do it, if there is something to report to the American people in Congress, we will do it,” Kirby said at a press conference.
The spokesman added that the United States expects “full transparency and cooperation” from China and stressed that it has constantly made this known to Beijing, including when Biden and Xi met at the G20 summit in Bali last November.