China refuses to allow international coronavirus investigators until 'final victory' over outbreakclose
Video
Punishment campaign? What communist China is doing to their own people
Melissa Francis and Brian Kilmeade react the Chinese government targeting its own citizens who report new coronavirus cases, speak about the illness or try to mourn the dead
Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here.
China announced Wednesday that it will not invite international investigators to probe the origins of the novel coronavirus until the disease is fully defeated and a "final victory" is won.
Beijing's United Nations (UN) ambassador in Geneva, Chen Xu, made the comments during an online press briefing, according to France 24.
After being asked when the World Health Organization (WHO) would be allowed to conduct an investigation, he said the issue is a matter of priorities and called America's criticism of China "absurd and ridiculous."
"The top priority, for the time being, is to focus on the fight against the pandemic until we win the final victory," Chen said.
"It's not that we are allergic to any kind of investigations, inquiries or evaluations," he added. "For whether or how the invitation will take place, we need to have the right priority setting at this moment, and on the other hand, we need the right atmosphere."
The WHO has faced criticism from President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and various media outlets for its apologetic stance with regard to China.
VideoThe agency has also received backlash for a January tweet citing Chinese officials who claimed there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19.
In addition, China was recently accused of censorship, destruction of evidence and a total lack of transparency in a leaked research dossier compiled by the so-called "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance.
While speaking with reporters last week, Trump claimed to have seen evidence that would suggest the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory and not from a wet market as was previously thought. He then shamed the WHO for its poor performance and highlighted its synchronicity with China.
"I think that the World Health Organization should be ashamed of themselves because they’re like the public relations agency for China," he said.
In February, before the virus had spread worldwide, Pompeo spoke with American governors and warned them of nefarious efforts by the Chinese government to infiltrate the political infrastructure of the U.S.
“We can’t ignore China’s actions and strategic intentions," he said at the time while addressing the National Governors Association's winter meeting. "The Chinese government has been methodical in the way it's analyzed our system… it's assessed our vulnerabilities and it's decided to exploit our freedoms, to gain an advantage over us at the federal level, the state level and the local level."
“Competition with China is happening. It’s happening in your state," Pompeo added. "In fact, I'd be surprised if most of you in the audience had not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party directly."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
China's latest comments come on the same day that Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott told Fox News he would be leading a congressional investigation into Communist China's involvement in the outbreak and pledged to discover where it originated, how the virus got out, and who is primarily responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths from COVID-19.
"We'll figure out whether the virus was created, whether it was released. Over time we will figure that out," he said. "But the reality is, whether it came out of the wet market or whether it came out of the lab, the worst thing is they intentionally did not tell the world and look at what's happened."
As of Wednesday afternoon, there were more than 3.7 million confirmed cases of the virus worldwide and over 260,000 deaths.
The U.S. accounted for at least 1.2 million of the confirmed cases and has had nearly 72,000 fatalities.
Fox News' Sam Chamberlain and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
