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China’s Coronavirus Misinformation Campaign Seeks to Avoid Blame | Foreign Policy

On March 22, Axios on HBO aired an interview it had conducted with Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, nearly a week earlier in which Cui reiterated his original Feb. 9 assertion that spreading coronavirus-related conspiracy theories would be “crazy” and “very harmful.” Cui was referring, albeit indirectly, to claims that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was developed in a military lab, perhaps in the United States, promoted by fellow Chinese officials. He particularly appeared to distance himself from the recently touted conspiracy by a spokesperson from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) that the U.S. military may have brought the coronavirus to China, retorting, “I don’t have the responsibility to explain everybody’s view to you.

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