Suva, 1 September 2021 (TDI): Qian Bo, the Ambassador of China to Fiji, advocated China’s stance on the COVID-19 origin-tracing and suggested “Respect science, Reject politicization” in his opinion article. While explaining the investigation of COVID-19’s origin, he writes that a report on where the COVID-19 began should not be carried out by Intelligence agencies, but by scientists. While refusing the politicization, he urged international cooperation for global protection.

Further, the ambassador said that China is fully cooperating with the international community for scientific investigation. In this regard, Beijing invited a joint expert group and World Health Organization (WHO) for origin-tracing related inquiry in China.

Moreover, he underlined that there are proofs of COVID’s existence before its emergence in Wuhan. Hence, further investigation should be global because “the virus does not respect borders”. Qian also mentioned the number of countries supporting scientific and global origin tracing of COVID-19.

In the last, he called global cooperation the “most powerful weapon” to combat the deadly virus and announced the preparedness of China to support Fiji in dealing with the pandemic.