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Chinese foreign ministry spokesman tweets claim US military brought coronavirus to Wuhan
- Zhao Lijian has urged his followers to share allegation from conspiracy website that the disease originated in United States
- It comes as senior US officials including President Donald Trump have sought to describe it as a ‘foreign virus’
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Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian took to Twitter on Friday to double down on an unproven claim that the US military brought the new coronavirus to the central city of Wuhan, where the outbreak began.
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Zhao urged his more than 287,000 followers in two tweets on Friday morning to widely share an allegation from a Canada-based conspiracy website that the coronavirus – which has become a global pandemic – originated in the US rather than the Wuhan seafood market that is thought to be its source.
“This is so astonishing that it changed many things I used to believe in,” he wrote on his official account.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Beijing declined to comment on Zhao’s tweets.
The allegation was apparently linked to the US Army’s participation in the international Military World Games held in Wuhan in October, which drew competitors from more than 100 countries.
The incendiary and unverified claim from Zhao – a prolific tweeter promoted to deputy director general of the foreign ministry’s information department in February – came despite a widespread backlash to his first tweets on the subject late on Thursday.
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