Virus stokes China’s spat with Australia
SEOUL • Soon after Australian officials called in April for a joint international investigation of the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese government ratcheted up pressure on Canberra to drop a proposal that it believed would unfairly target China.
In an interview last weekend, Ambassador Cheng Jingye hinted Beijing held a powerful card: a boycott. Persist with the inquiry, Cheng said, and “ordinary people might ask: “Why should we drink Australian wine? Why eat Australian beef?”
Cheng hoped to squelch the investigation quickly. Instead, he sparked a furor — and reignited a yearslong debate in Australia over how a self-described “middle power” in China’s shadow should balance its economic and other national interests.
A call by the Trump administration and allies for probes into the pandemic’s beginnings — including unsupported claims the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab — has both sides in attack mode.
Senior officials in the United States are exploring proposals for punishing or demanding financial compensation from China. The ideas include stripping China of its “sovereign immunity” to enable the U. S. government or coronavirus victims to sue China for damages, according to senior administration officials with knowledge of the discussions.
At the same time, however, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence knocked back the theories that the virus came from a lab, saying it was “not manmade or genetically modified.” But the statement Thursday noted that intelligence agencies were still evaluating theories linking the outbreak to the lab.
China has fired back at Washington with an onslaught of swipes, calling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a “super- spreader” of a “political virus.”
In Australia on Monday, Foreign Minister Marise Payne reiterated her call for a global inquiry and denounced China’s attempt at “economic coercion.” Penny Wong, a top figure in the opposition Labor Party, said she hoped China was not threatening Australia, adding the inquiry was “the right thing to do” for humanity. On Wednesday, Andrew Forrest, a mining tycoon and Australia’s most prominent advocate of deeper relations with China, said he, too, believed it was “common sense” to conduct an investigation.