Editor's note: Hamzah Rifaat Hussain is a former visiting fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and currently serves as assistant researcher at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) in Pakistan. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The cyclical process of propagandas, fabrications and lies on the origins of COVID-19 and China's role has continued unabated. On May 10, China rejected allegations in media reports that its military scientists were investigating the weaponization of coronaviruses in 2015, five years prior to the global pandemic. 

The need to both separate fact from fiction and question the veracity of the assertions being made has once again become necessary for the sake of impartiality. The truth is that subjective interpretations and assumptions drawn by the Australian is yet another addition to the relentless smear campaigns launched to defame Beijing.

The report states that the U.S. State Department obtained "bombshell" documents apparently written by Chinese military scientists and public health officials back in 2015. These documents mention how scientists apparently associated with the People's Liberation Army allegedly investigated weaponizing coronaviruses while simultaneously predicting that World War III will be fought with biological weapons.

While Western media outlets have been quick to capitalize on such outlandish claims, journalistic ethics have been dealt a major blow given that the report by the Australian is based on the assumption that the State Department gained access to an internal PLA document.

The truth however, as mentioned by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying when queried about the release is that a publicly issued academic book was cited conveniently by the Australian to weaken China's case.

The book titled "The Unnatural Origins of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapon" was actually written by military doctor Xu Dezhong in 2015 with the premise that the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s originated through unconventional ways of genetic modification.

What do such sources have to do with the current global pandemic? The Australian or other platforms would simply have no answer given that references made to another world war or biological weapons by scholars of international relations, defense and strategic studies or peace conflict studies are considered standard parlance in the academic world.

To deliberately misquote and misrepresent academic assessments and present them as accurate accounts is simply shameful. It should thus, come as no surprise that the discredited report was met with denunciation by netizens and experts given the lack of professional ethics or solid evidence on display to back the American or Australian narrative on COVID-19 and Chinese culpability.

Professor Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Center at the East China Normal University considered the findings of the academic book which explores concepts such as bioterrorism and warfare to have been twisted, manipulated and fabricated as a conspiracy theory to deliberately malign China.

Interestingly enough, the book also cites U.S. Air Force Colonel Michael J. Ainscough who stated that the next generation of biological weapons will be part of an American program towards dealing with weapons of mass destruction.

None of this can be interpreted as China attempting to weaponize coronaviruses which is ludicrous given that Beijing is a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 and, as the Foreign Ministry Spokesman earlier pointed out, has established solid legal mechanisms to deal with the safety of bio labs internally.

For tabloids to peddle and promote such hollow conspiracy theories speaks volumes of the malicious campaigns deliberately launched to defame China.

If anything, such musings which lack concrete evidence will only vindicate China's stance on the nebulous origins of COVID-19. On the subject of biosecurity, the U.S. currently has bio labs in 25 countries that have seen large outbreaks of infectious diseases posing a threat to global stability.

Yet, deliberate attempts to fudge academic findings and twist them upon convenience to promote one narrative at the expense of the other continues unabashedly. Such reporting also constitutes the politicization of a pandemic that has affected millions of lives globally. It could well be that Western academics themselves would question these ludicrous assertions on merit alone.

What is undeniable, however, is that this report constitutes yet another component of the relentless cycle of lies and fallacies aimed at maligning Beijing. They deserve to be dismissed time and time again.

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