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Beijing has good reason to be suspicious about Washington's renewed calls for a "real" investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus in China, said Alfred de Zayas, former United Nations (UN) independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order.
The expert made the remarks during a recent interview with Sputnik, saying that he has seen how allegedly "independent" probes have turned into fishing expeditions and "blame games".
On June 20, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan threatened China with "international isolation" if it fails to allow a "real" investigation into the origins of the virus in its territory.
Responding to Sullivan's remarks
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said
on Monday that the claim Beijing is not cooperating with the probe into the origins of the coronavirus does not hold water. Zhao emphasized that Sullivan's statement is nothing short of a "blatant threat", which China objects and won't accept.
A new international probe into the origins of the virus must be really objective and should look not only into the Wuhan outbreak but into all reported cases of the presence of the virus in 2019 elsewhere in the world, de Zayas said.
"The U.S. wants to deflect attention from its own mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis. At present, the U.S. has zero evidence – only suspicions and conspiracy theories," he added.
Asked about if there is really a need for a new international probe into the origins of COVID-19 in China, the expert stressed that there is "abundant evidence that the novel coronavirus was identified in Italy, France, and the U.S." before the outbreak in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province.