Beijing calls US report on COVID-19 “mendacious”

Beijing has called the US intelligence report on the origin of COVID-19 „mendacious“. The report was made up for „political purposes“, according to a statement released by China’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday. „Without providing any evidence, the US has cooked up one story after another to defame and accuse China,“ China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu was quoted as saying. The Chinese embassy in Washington also dismissed the report in a statement, accusing the US of „political manipulation“. It said the paper served to „make China a scapegoat“.