Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Wednesday that the American people and the world need to know when the COVID-19 virus first started in the United States, in response to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent attack on the Communist Party of China (CPC) over its response to the outbreak. 

"CPC is open, transparent & responsible in #COVID19 response. 2 U.S. experts were in China on WHO-China joint mission in late Jan. Why not ask U.S. experts to locate when the virus first started in the U.S.? American people need answers. The world also has right to know," Hua tweeted. 

Pompeo on Tuesday called on the CPC to be "transparent" and cooperate with the U.S. over COVID-19. "We haven't been able to get our team on the ground to do the work that it needs to do," he claimed. 

Hua noted that two American experts traveled to China in late January as part of a joint mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) and China, which conducted a field study on the virus in different parts of the country. 

According to a timeline on China's COVID-19 information sharing and international cooperation published earlier this month, the country began to inform the WHO and the U.S. about the outbreak as early as January 3.

The first confirmed case of the coronavirus was reported in the U.S. on January 21, but it is not clear when the virus actually started in the country. 

Hua also mentioned a leaked 57-page memo of the U.S. Republican Party that advises its candidates to address the COVID-19 pandemic by attacking China. She urged Washington to stop such attacks. 

The memo, which was sent by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to GOP campaigns, guides Republican candidates on how to blame China for "covering up" the virus. 

"The playbook for Blaming China has been exposed," Hua tweeted. "Better stop and take back its systematic and organized attack, slander, and defamation on China." 

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Beijing has repeatedly urged Washington to stop blaming others in a bid to cover up its poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. 

Geng Shuang, another spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday that the attempt to shift the blame will not erase the achievements of the Chinese people in fighting COVID-19 through, or will it help with the pandemic response in the U.S. 

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has surpassed one million, and there are over 58,000 deaths.