In its final communiqué, issued after a three-day meeting in Cornwall (south-west England), G7 leaders accused Beijing of not "respecting human rights" in Xinjiang, where lives the Uyghur minority, and Hong Kong.

For his part, US President Joe Biden urged Beijing to "act more responsibly in terms of human rights".

The Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom reacted angrily to these statements on Monday, accusing the G7 of wanting to interfere.

"It is taking advantage of the Xinjiang-related issues to engage in political manipulation and interfere in China's internal affairs, and we strongly oppose it," an embassy spokesperson said in a statement.

The latter accused the G7 of "lies, rumors and baseless accusations".

Human rights organizations say that in Xinjiang, a region populated mainly by Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority and mainly Muslim, more than a million Uyghurs are or have been detained in political re-education camps.

The G7 calls for a new investigation into the origins of the Covid-19

"We intend to promote our values, including calling on China to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms concerning Xinjiang and these rights, freedoms as well as a significant degree of autonomy in Hong Kong," said the heads of state and government of France, Italy, United Kingdom, Canada, United States, Germany and Japan in their final communiqué. They also called for a further investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) into the origin of Covid-19 in China.

To this request, the Chinese embassy replied that it must be done in a "scientific, objective and fair manner", without accepting a new investigation.

"The current epidemic is still raging around the world, and the work to find out its origin should be done by global scientists and should not be political," the embassy said.

The coronavirus first appeared in China at the end of 2019. The WHO sent international experts there to try to determine its origins.

Their report published at the end of March failed to draw conclusions and voices were raised against Beijing's lack of cooperation and transparency.

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