<![CDATA[Coronavirus: China can turn the tables on the US with a science-led probe into Covid-19's origins]>

But Washington cannot wait for the coronavirus pandemic, which is still ravaging much of the world, including the United States itself, to die down. It is instead leading an international campaign to pin the blame on China for its initial mishandling of the outbreak, which was first reported in the country, hoping to make Beijing appear solely responsible for the human calamity.

This is despite great debate over the origins of the disease and how the virus spread to the rest of the world.

Last weekend, US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ramped up rhetoric about the origins of the virus, with Pompeo claiming there was "enormous evidence" that it originated in a research laboratory in Wuhan, the original epicentre. They did not produce evidence and their theory has been contradicted by US intelligence agencies and prominent international scientists.

Beijing has responded furiously, accusing Washington of stigmatising China and claiming the Trump administration's own early lapses and late response are responsible for the US having more than 1.2 million infections and more than 70,000 deaths, more than anywhere else. Worldwide, there have been more than a quarter of a million deaths and more than 3.6 million confirmed cases.

Beijing is at a distinct disadvantage in this blame game, not least because its propaganda lacks any credibility and is thus ineffective overseas. As the global backlash builds against China, the country faces the worst international environment since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

But Chinese leaders could turn the tables on the US by allowing science to speak and lead.

Beijing should muster the courage to call for an independent and international science-based investigation, preferably led by the United Nations or the World Health Organisation (WHO), into where and how the pandemic started and spread. This could help debunk the myriad conspiracy theories that are making the rounds.

For the moment, Beijing has vehemently opposed calls for an international investigation proposed by Washington and its ally Australia, with good reason.

Chinese officials have rightly argued that these calls for an investigation are politically motivated, aimed at targeting and stigmatising China, and would result in an arbitrary investigation based upon the presumption of guilt.

But that should not prevent China from calling for an international science-based review without prejudice and without preconditions. Doing so could in fact boost China's international standing as a responsible world power.

Such an action would help Beijing break out of Washington's encirclement " which is an effort by the US to deflect blame for its own mistakes.

It would also help China clear the air with the international community and win more friends.

In fact, Chinese officials have never ruled out a science-based investigation. In an interview with NBC News, Le Yucheng, a deputy foreign minister, said China was open to an international investigation.

"We support professional exchanges between scientists, including exchanges for reviewing and summarising experiences," he said. "What we oppose, however, are unfounded charges against China."

Chinese official media has painted the US-led calls for an international investigation as a ploy by a small group of politicians to smear China. But the reality is that because of the devastating impact of the pandemic on economies and lives, not to mention the misinformation circulating on the internet, grievances against China are widespread and representative. The European Union has backed an international inquiry and similar calls have been made in India and Africa.

More importantly, in this increasingly politicised and ideologically driven world, scientists and medical professionals are our best hope to get to the bottom of the pandemic and find a vaccine. And they are trained to be apolitical.

Zhong Nanshan, China's top respiratory expert, played a critical role in forcing the Chinese government to come clean about the outbreak of the virus and take forceful measures to contain its spread. He has long maintained that while the virus may have been first reported in China, that does not mean it originated in the country.

On Monday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US health official tasked with America's pandemic response, dismissed the theory that the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan lab, contradicting Trump and Pompeo.

"The best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China," he said in an interview with National Geographic.

He also said he did not believe the alternate theory that someone discovered the virus in the wild, took it to a lab and then the lab accidentally unleashed it on the public.

Fauci has reinforced the view of most scientists, including the experts at WHO, that the virus originated in a natural transmission from an animal to a human.

Still, many important questions over the origin of the virus and its spread remain to be answered.

For instance, a study by French scientists at the Institut Pasteur in Paris showed that France's first case was not imported from China or Italy, the earliest hotspot in Europe. Instead, it came from a locally circulating strain of unknown origin.

Back in March, Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told the US House of Representatives' Oversight Committee that some coronavirus-related deaths had been discovered posthumously and it was possible that some flu diagnoses from the earlier flu season were, in fact, the coronavirus.

Also in March, Dr Francis Collins, director of the US National Institute of Health, cited a study by a group of US, British and Australian scientists as saying that the coronavirus had crossed from animals to humans long before it became capable of causing disease in people. The study suggested the virus might have been spreading among humans for years or even decades.

All this speaks to the critical importance of assembling the best scientific minds the world can offer in a comprehensive and unbiased science-based investigation, with cooperation and transparency from all countries, particularly China and the US.

Such an investigation would help expose all the prevailing claims, myths and conspiracy theories surrounding the origins of the virus and how it spread around the globe.

A nurse tends to a coronavirus patient in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Photo: Xinhua alt=A nurse tends to a coronavirus patient in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Photo: Xinhua

For instance, if the investigators should demand access to the Wuhan research laboratory to address the US allegation that the virus originated there, then they should also look into the claims that the US military germ laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland, may have been the original source.

According to a report by The Economist magazine, the US has a dozen so-called super secure biolabs that deal with fatal diseases while China has only two, including the one in Wuhan.

How to ensure those biolabs remain super secure with increased scrutiny should be another issue the international investigation team should look at.

Of course, the team should thoroughly probe China's initial mishandling of the outbreak, including the cover-up and suppression of early warnings by doctors. Fully owning up to those missteps would prove embarrassing to Chinese leaders; however, doing so would not only give people closure but it would also enhance confidence in the government at home.

Moreover, such an investigation would also highlight what Beijing did right after it took forceful measures to contain the spread.

In equal measure, the team should also investigate Washington's early lapses and late response to the outbreak. According to the timeline, starting from January 23 when the Chinese government decided to quarantine the entire megapolitan city of Wuhan (population nearly 10 million), the scale of the crisis was plain to see through intensive press coverage around the world.

According to NBC News, US intelligence agencies first detected signs of a health crisis in Wuhan in November and started to write briefings for Trump in early January, which is roughly when the National Security Council began meeting about the coronavirus.

On Sunday, Trump said he was first briefed on January 23. Even if we take his word for it, it begs the bigger question of why he ignored warnings about the nature of the outbreak and waited more than seven weeks before his administration finally took decisive action on March 16, as documented in an investigation by The New York Times. As usual, Trump reacted angrily to the report, calling it "fake".

So it is fair to ask for a full accounting of the Trump administration's blunders if it presses Beijing to do the same.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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