Tehran 13 March_The Chinese Foreign Ministry has not ruled out the possibility that the United States was to blame for the spread of the new coronavirus in the Asian country.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club(YJC)_Geng Shuang, the ministry spokesman, sidestepped questions on Friday about whether Beijing viewed Washington as responsible for the deadly virus outbreak in China, a day after another spokesman suggested the US army could have engineered it.
Speaking at a news conference in the Chinese capital, Geng refused to directly comment when asked whether his colleague Zhao Lijian's comments were consistent with Beijing's official stance on the virus.
"In fact, the international community, including people within the US, have different opinions about the origin of the virus,” Geng told reporters at the presser.
“As I have been saying for a few days, China has always seen this as a matter of science, and scientific and professional opinions must be heard.”
Geng went on to say, "You're very interested to know if Zhao Lijian's views represent the views of the Chinese government."
"I believe that perhaps you would be better off first asking whether or not recent comments from a number of senior US officials attacking or smearing China represent the US government's position."
In a strongly-worded tweet, written in English, Zhao blasted the US on Thursday for what he called lack of transparency in official reports regarding the coronavirus outbreak in the US.
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