Beijing: Attacks by US untrue, unhelpful

Some individual officials in the United States should focus their efforts on responding to the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic instead of attacking China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Thursday.

Geng made the remark at a daily news conference after Robert O'Brien, the White House national security adviser, accused China of covering up the epidemic and costing the world two months to respond.

It is immoral and irresponsible to try to "pin the blame on China" and denigrate China's efforts to tackle the disease, which "will not help one bit" US efforts to prevent and control the epidemic, Geng said.

It is universally acknowledged in the international community that China has released information openly and transparently, detected the pathogen at record speed and offered to share the virus's genome sequence with the World Health Organization and countries including the US in a timely manner, Geng said.

A WHO mission including experts from the US paid a nineday visit to China in February to investigate China's epidemic control and prevention.

The mission's findings praised China's transparency in fighting the disease, Geng said, adding that some people in the US have "turned a blind eye" to such appraisals of China's efforts.

Also, it is universally acknowledged that the speed and scale of China's response to the epidemic has rarely been seen anywhere, Geng said.

Such powerful measures and huge sacrifices made by the Chinese people curbed the spread of the disease to other countries, gaining time for the world to cope with the virus, he said.

"I do not wish to comment on whether the US has made the best use of the invaluable time China has gained. I think the US people and the international community are watching," he said.

The world should work together to fight the epidemic, and it is unconstructive to make groundless accusations, Geng said.

"We urge individual US officials to respect fact and international public opinion, and spend their time on coping with the epidemic and strengthening cooperation, instead of defaming others," he said.

Also on Thursday, Geng announced that China and 17 Central and Eastern European countries will hold a video conference on Friday to share epidemic information and exchange prevention and control experience.

Officials and experts from the countries will attend the meeting.

China treats seriously the challenges for the Central and Eastern European countries in tackling the epidemic, and will provide support to the best of its ability, Geng said.