Pangolin trade led to crisis, says Boris
PM sparks fury in Beijing
BOrIs Johnson faced the wrath of china yesterday after he blamed its ‘demented’ traditional medical practices for coronavirus.
In remarks to world leaders, he suggested covid-19 could have originated from grinding up the scales of pangolins to aid virility.
china reacted with fury and accused the Prime Minister of ‘groundless conjecture’.
In his speech to the One Planet summit, hosted by France’s emmanuel Macron, Mr Johnson said: ‘It’s right to focus on climate change, obviously it’s right to cut cO2 emissions, but we won’t achieve a real balance with our planet unless we protect nature as well.
‘Don’t forget that the coronavirus pandemic was the product of an imbalance in man’s relationship with the natural world.
‘It originates from bats or pangolins, from the demented belief that if you grind up the scales of a pangolin you will somehow become more potent or whatever it is people believe. It originates from this collision between mankind and the natural world and we’ve got to stop it.’
Heavily-trafficked, pangolins have been blamed for transmitting coronavirus from bats to humans.
Mr Johnson has called for more protection for pangolins and wrote a newspaper article calling for greater efforts to crack down on those who hunt or smuggle them.
He is said to have been inspired by his fiancée, carrie symonds, who has spoken out about the threats to the survival of the scaly mammals.
the first documented cases of covid-19 were in the chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 – with a wet market trading in exotic animals seen as a possible source.
china said claims made against the country would not be tolerated.
Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman said ‘careful and meticulous’ studies were needed to discover the origin of the coronavirus outbreak.
Zhao Lijian added: ‘We’ve said many times that origin tracing is a scientific matter. Groundless conjecture or hype-up of the issue will only disrupt normal international cooperation on origin tracing.’
A World Health Organisation team investigating the source of the outbreak will finally be allowed to visit Wuhan tomorrow.
conservative MP Bob seely, who sits on the House of commons foreign affairs committee, defended Mr Johnson’s remarks.
He said: ‘the chinese have to show good faith in co-operating with the WHO rather than trying to block them so we can know more about where this virus came from.
‘there are justified questions to be asking, including where it came from and how it jumped species.’
the WHO had expressed frustration about late hold-ups preventing the team travelling to china last week. tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who heads the UN agency, said the scientists would focus on how coronavirus first jumped to humans.
the chinese authorities largely brought the virus’s spread under control last spring but are now dealing with an outbreak in the province of Hebei, adjacent to Beijing. Pangolins inhabit tropical forests in India, china, south- east Asia and parts of Africa. they are prized for their meat and the alleged medicinal properties of their scales, but it is illegal to sell them.
Beijing has denied they are a vector for moving covid-19 from bats to humans. Last year researchers in china found that the animals were natural hosts for various coronaviruses, but did not appear to be the direct source of the virus.
relations between Britain and china soured last year after Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong residents.
the UK’s decision to ban Huawei from helping to build a 5G network further fuelled tensions.
And Dominic raab yesterday accused china of ‘barbarism’ in dealing with dissidents in Xinjiang.
the Foreign secretary said that British firms would face hefty fines unless they could prove they were not profiting from human rights abuses in the province.
Under new laws, companies will have to publish transparency reports to show how they ensure their products are not made by those forced into labour.
‘Trade in exotic animals’