No, because the release was much more intense in China itself. Why would China wish to hurt their own country first? Since the virus got prematurely released in Wuhan population first, I have to believe it was an accident. China tried to hide it for weeks until the numbers became too large to hide and the virus began spreading all over China, Hong Kong, Macau, etc.
Since China can not effectively retaliate US tariffs, because we import 4 times more from them than China does from us, what are the “proud” Chinese supposed to do? Attack US internet? Attack US infrastructure? Military attack?
All above would be impossible to hide origin of attack. The best method would have been infect a few Chinese travelers to US, while the virus was unknown to the world. Let the virus spread in US rapidly and cause economic dislocations in US. That would have been effective retaliation for hurting China with tariffs.
Okay I will take a breath and settle down. Last week I had myself convinced the Chinese did this based on that article (I can no longer find) where the Chinese said they intend to try to stop Trump from being elected. Apparently they are putting some effort to turn Florida blue?
Anyways as you said they wouldn’t want to destroy their own economy to do it (I’m sure they could care less about the actual lives of Chinese citizens)