Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday that Australia's calls for an inquiry into the origins of the new coronavirus disease are "reasonable" and do not target any particular country.
"What Australia is pursuing is not targeted", Morrison said. "This is a virus that has taken more than 200,000 lives across the world. It has shut down the global economy. The implications and impacts of this are extraordinary. Now, it would seem entirely reasonable and sensible that the world would want to have an independent assessment."
Earlier, Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne called for a global investigation into the cause of the coronavirus pandemic and China's response during the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on 11 March. As of today, more than 3,116,000 people have been infected with coronavirus and over 217,100 have died from the disease worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University count.