KATHMANDU, August 31: China has expressed its gratitude to Nepal for “always adhering to an objective and fair position and giving valuable support on the issue of origin tracing of the COVID-19 infection. Issuing a press release on Monday, Chinese spokesperson to Nepal, Luan Xituan remarked that Nepal has always supported China by taking a fair stand on the origin of COVID-19. 

In the press release, it has been stated that Nepal is among 80 other countries that have written a letter to the Director General of World Health Organization (WHO), asking the latter not to politicize the issue of the COVID-19 origin. 

China has termed its relationship with Nepal as ‘a good example of international cooperation’ in the fight against the pandemic, adding that the two neighboring countries had been helping and supporting each other since the outbreak of COVID-19. It was also stated that China has been the prime supplier of COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal. So far, Nepal has received as many as 7.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines through a relief and procurement process from China. 

In addition, China has announced to further provide COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal within its capacity, and to work together to resist the headwind of politicization of origin-tracing and safeguard the sound atmosphere of global anti-epidemic cooperation. 

Earlier, the Director of National Intelligence of the United States had released a summary of the intelligence community assessment which accused China of hindering global investigation, resisting sharing of information, and blaming other countries. Another statement issued by the White House on the same day also purported that China tries to hold back international investigations and reject calls for transparency.

In response to these allegations, China has expressed its firm objection. According to China, as the origin of the virus is related to science, the investigation should be done by scientists. China has claimed that the US has accused it over the origin of the virus without any facts or evidence. “The US has cooked up one story after another to defame and accuse China. The deployment of the intelligence community in origins tracing is itself a compelling evidence of politicization of the issue. Such activities will only undermine the global efforts of origins tracing and cooperation on pandemic response,” the press release read. 

“We are the first to cooperate with the WHO experts to conduct the investigation twice in China. WHO has also released a joint report containing authoritative, professional and science-based conclusions on March 30, 2021,” the press release read.

Furthermore, China said that it has released information, shared the genome sequencing of the virus, carried out international cooperation to fight the disease and will continue to support science-based efforts to find the origin of the virus.  In the press release, China has also expressed not to politicize the issue and has announced to work in coordination with Nepal on the issue.

 
• Nepal-China_relationship
 
• COVID-19
 
• Origin-tracing