In their report to President Joe Biden, the U.S. intelligence agencies have said that they have not been able to determine if the coronavirus pandemic leaked from a lab or if it emerged naturally.[ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/politics/covid-origin-lab-leak.html?searchResultPosition=1]

Many people may see it as vindication for China, which has rejected any suggestion that the virus may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. China has mocked the declassified sections of the report that was presented to Biden, saying that it was "not scientifically credible", and the accusation that there was lack of transparency on the part of China was an excuse for "politicizing and stigmatizing." [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202108/28/WS6129aa76a310efa1bd66bc5c.html]

China not only says that there is no proof of the virus leaking from the Wuhan lab, but it is also doubling down on the theory that the virus originated in China.

China has floated several theories on the origins of the virus. For instance, a group of its scientists claimed that there could be multiple "potential locations of the natural reservoir" for the novel coronavirus, and the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak of Covid-19 was first reported could be "far from the place" of origins. They have also speculated that the virus may have been imported through the "cold-chain cargo arrivals" from other parts of the world. [https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1230106.shtml]

It has also urged the WHO to investigate the U.S.' Fort Detrick lab over the Covid-19 origins. China has claimed that the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, stores the "most deadly and infectious viruses in the world," including Ebola, smallpox, SARS, MERS and the other novel coronavirus.

The Chinese embassy in Washington has said that origins-tracing is a matter of science and that "it should and can only be left to scientists, not intelligence experts."

Many experts have dismissed China's theories on the origins of the virus as propaganda, but that is unlikely to change Beijing's counter to anybody questioning it about the origins of the virus.

Read more:

U.S. intelligence split on origins of virus:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/27/covid-origin-report-us-intelligence-agencies-are-divided.html

China on U.S. intelligence report:
http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zmgxs/zxxx/t1902650.htm