China has sensationally claimed that America is to blame for the Covid pandemic in a white paper released on Wednesday.
The document from China's State Council Information Office suggests the virus that killed 1.2million Americans and at least seven million people worldwide may have originated in the United States.
The US President has recently doubled down on claims that Covid leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a lab known to be conducting coronavirus experiments, calling it the only plausible explanation for the pandemic.
In the report, Chinese officials wrote: "The US government, instead of facing squarely its failure in response to Covid-19 and reflecting on its shortcomings, has tried to shift the blame and divert people's attention by shamelessly politicising SARS-CoV-2 origins tracing."
The lab leak theory was initially dismissed as a fringe conspiracy before research brought it into the mainstreamGETTY
The white paper calls for a "thorough and in-depth investigation into the origins of the virus" to be conducted in the United States.
It claims "substantial evidence suggested the Covid-19 might have emerged in the United States earlier than its officially-claimed timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China", contradicting assessments from the CIA and FBI, which both believe evidence points to the Wuhan lab as the source.
The Chinese government wrote in its white paper that in January 2020 that "the US was aware that an epidemic of a novel coronavirus was spreading quickly within its borders".
It accused American officials of choosing to "downplay the severity of the epidemic [on] multiple occasions compared Covid to the flu, saying that it would disappear automatically one day".
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The report claims: "The US has made China the primary scapegoat for its own mismanaged Covid-19 response."
It further alleges that "the US government's indifference and delayed actions wasted the precious time China had secured for the global fight against the pandemic".
The white paper alleges the virus has its roots in US soil, detailing respiratory disease outbreaks from May to October 2019 that China claims were Covid cases.
The document cites a US CDC study showing that out of 7,389 serological samples collected from nine states between December 2019 and January 2020, 106 were SARS-CoV-2 antibody positive.
The document also references an NIH study that tested 24,079 blood samples, identifying nine containing antibodies for the virus.
However, antibody tests can cross-react with other coronaviruses, such as the common cold, and can produce false positives.
China has maintained that the US failed to share information about early illness outbreaks with the World Health Organisation
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The white paper has alleged that the US recorded around 1,500 "serious laboratory incidents involving coronaviruses and other highly dangerous pathogens" linked to diseases including SARS and MERS.
The claim, however, omits that all but 11 incidents were minor, such as broken vials.
Only 15 people contracted laboratory-acquired infections, with three unintended infections of animals.
Meanwhile, China has maintained that the US failed to share information about early illness outbreaks with the World Health Organisation.
The Chinese government demanded: "The US should cease from shifting blame and evading responsibility, stop finding external excuses for its internal malaise, and genuinely reflect on and overhaul its public health policies.
"The US cannot continue to turn a deaf ear to the numerous questions over its conduct."
