President Biden succeeded in cajoling reluctant world leaders to call out China directly in the G7 end-of-summit joint statement issued on Sunday. Among the lines that will anger Beijing was a demand for a full WHO phase two probe into the origins of the COVID pandemic inside China. Speaking after the summit, Biden said: “We haven’t had access to the laboratories to determine whether or not this was the consequence of… an experiment gone awry in a laboratory. It’s important to know that.” The president was asked how he had managed to persuade his fellow leaders to go after China explicitly, and he couldn’t hide his satisfaction at getting one over on Beijing. “There’s no way to answer that question without sounding self-serving,” he said.
