China has strongly opposed to any “arbitrary” probe into the origin of Coronavirus pandemic that is based on the presumption of its guilt, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said.
“This is an arbitrary investigation based on the presumption of guilt. That is what we firmly oppose,” Efe news reported on Thursday citing Le as saying.
“We support professional exchanges between scientists. What we oppose, however, is unfounded charges against China. One should not accuse China first and then run so-called international investigations just to make up the evidence.”
He made the comments on Tuesday in an exclusive interview with NBC News aired on Wednesday.
The comments come two days after US President Donald Trump said his administration is carrying out a “very serious” investigation against China, indicating that his administration is looking at a bigger compensation from Beijing than the $140 billion being sought by Germany over the Coronavirus pandemic.
Leaders of the US, the UK and Germany increasingly believe that the unfortunate deaths of so many people and destruction of the global economy could have been avoided, if China had shown transparency and shared the information about the virus in its early phases.
Many countries have started talking about claiming compensation from China.
Trump, during the Rose Garden press conference on Monday, was asked about Germany planning to send a bill to China for euro 130 billion (USD 140 billion) for the damages. “Would your administration look at doing the same?”
“Well, we can do something much easier than that. We have ways of doing things a lot easier than that,” the President replied.
“Germany is looking at things and we’re looking at things and we’re talking about a lot more money than Germany is talking about.
“We haven’t determined the final amount yet,” but “it is very substantial,” Trump said.
“If you look at the world, I mean, this is a worldwide damage. This is a damage to the US but this is a damage to the world,” said the President.
He further said that there are “a lot of ways” one can hold China accountable for the spread of the virus. “We’re doing very serious investigations, as you probably know. We are not happy with China,” he said.
Last week, President Donald Trump had said that his country was “attacked”.
“We were attacked. This was an attack. This wasn’t just the flu by the way. Nobody has ever seen anything like this, 1917 was the last time,” Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference.
Trump has been constantly blaming China and the World Health Organisation for being responsible for the pandemic.
On Wednesday, Trump termed WHO “literally a pipe organ for China” and said the United States will soon come out with its recommendations on the global body, followed by one in Beijing.
“They misled us,” he said of the WHO on the Coronavirus outbreak.
Trump has also launched an investigation into the WHO’s role in the spread of Coronavirus and have accused it of siding with China during the pandemic. Pending an investigation. Meanwhile, the President has stopped US aid to the WHO.
Globally, the official death toll reached 227,644, and at least 3,193,961 people have been infected worldwide according to Johns Hopkins University data.