China said yesterday that US Republican Senator Rick Scott must provide evidence that he accused Beijing of trying to slow or spoil the effort by Western countries to produce a vaccine for the "Covid-19" disease, caused by the Corona virus.
This came, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, during a daily statement in response to what the Republican Senator said in an interview with BBC TV, during which he stated that the United States has evidence that China Trying to slow down Western countries' attempts to develop a vaccine to prevent "Covid-19" or to completely fail it. When asked about the evidence, Scott declined to provide details, but said he came from intelligence services.
In a related context, Australia announced yesterday that China has not responded to its calls for weeks to ease tensions between the two trading partners, which escalated after Canberra called for an international investigation into the origin of the emerging corona virus.
Australia insists that this call for an independent investigation into the pandemic, which it says has most likely originated in a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is not targeted politically.
China has accused Australia of "trivial tricks" and warned China's ambassador to Australia, Chen Jingyi, that Chinese consumers could boycott Australian products if Australia pursues this investigation. China has also suspended importing beef from four of Australia's largest meat manufacturers, and imposed heavy tariffs on barley imports, despite both sides announcing that the measures were unrelated to the pandemic dispute.
Australian Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, who has requested talks with his Chinese counterpart for weeks, confirmed that Beijing ignored Canberra's calls. He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday: "Unfortunately, our requests for talks have been received negatively so far."
- Australia: China has not responded to our calls to ease tensions.