The virus was likely accidentally released from the Wuhan lab, and since they were doing gain of functional mutations in that lab, they feared this virus could be highly infectious and lethal. The way they reacted to the initial infections in Wuhan suggests they were panicked about what could happen, genuinely panicked.
The Communist government of China was fine with research that could make highly lethal viruses, but the loss of containment freaked them out. That’s why they reacted the way they did, shutting down all travel from Wuhan to the rest of China, and doing things like welding doors shut to keep people from leaving buildings in Wuhan. They feared a massive infection of the Chinese people, decimating their population, shutting down their economy, and potentially ending Communist control of China. .
So, their concentration was on rapid, emergent containment in Wuhan. Whether they let flights out of Wuhan to the rest of the world on purpose, or if they just prioritized containment in Wuhan and neglected to think about the effects on the rest of the world is unclear. The first scenario is essentially a crime against the rest of humanity. The second is also a crime, but one of neglect - not intent. Which is true remains unknown at this point - at least in public circles.
I would think they neglected to ban flights from Wuhan into rest of the world. CCP is incompetent, kind of like the Soviets when Chernobyl happened. But CCP is not going to admit to their mistakes. They are already having problems getting the independent movement in Hong Kong under control. China could possibly assuage their most important trading partners if they confessed that they “f***ed up” but they did not want to sound incompetent if they did that.
“Whether they let flights out of Wuhan to the rest of the world on purpose”
Of course it was on purpose. Infected people from Wuhan were not allowed to travel to Shanghai and Beijing but they could go to Italy and New York.
This was not an accident. Chinese leaders made the decision to unleash this plague on the whole world.
That the “one error” they made in containing the virus was to “accidentally allow flights out of Wuhan into the rest of the world” proves to me there was malintent on their part.