there are very good reasons not to put china on the defensive publicly at this point.
this is a very fluid geopolitical situation. a big plague marker just escaped from pandora’s box and it sitting in the middle of the board (dropped on accident I assume) and the last thing you want is the country that 1)may have more variations of it and 2)may be worst hit by it thinking their best option is add more spice to the soup. They could do it, and may do it if their best chance of survival in power says go that route.
for this reason rumors of a different strain in iran are particularly terrifying just in the idea it could be true and would not be accidental release.
You make very very good points.
We aren’t at war with China, but we DO know they’ve got a lot of other nasty bugs in reserve.
They’ve got the whip hand over us right now.
And not just them. If any bad actors want to slipstream some nasty microbe into the mix, this is a great time to do so.