The US government deliberately called UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab using an insecure line to let Beijing eavesdrop on a conversation about the origins of COVID-19, The Mail on Sunday reported, citing sources in Washington.
Then-US secretary Mike Pompeo called Dominic Raab in December to inform his UK colleague that he plans to suggest that the coronavirus pandemic spread after a leak from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The call also included the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, according to the source.
“We did it on an open phone to ensure the Chinese could hear it. We were sending a message – we wanted to tell the Chinese. They have been prevaricating from day one, refusing to give us or you Brits any information day after day. So the Secretary of State, based on the frustration between the State Department and our closest allies by the end of the year, wanted to send a clear message,” they said.
The Washington source said that the UK Foreign Secretary had been “very supportive” during the phone call. A UK government source, however, told the outlet that Dominic Raab merely 'listened as Pompeo set out what he was planning to do', without endorsing his actions.
In January, two weeks after the phone call, Pompeo claimed that since at least 2016, the Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists had studied a bat coronavirus which is reported to be similar to the COVID-19 virus. He also claimed that despite presenting itself as a civilian laboratory, it has collaborated on secret projects with the Chinese military.
Beijing then responded by suggesting the US Army may have spread the virus in the city during the 2019 Military World Games.
In April last year, the WHO released a statement saying that all available evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 is of animal origin and not man-made.
A WHO expert team, which investigated several sites in Wuhan, which are suspected of being the original source of COVID-19 pandemic, including a wet market and the BSL-4 high-security lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, wrapped up a month-long research trip to the city in February. The investigators came to the conclusion that a leak of the virus from the lab was unlikely.