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The Wall Street Journal(WSJ), a conservative stronghold in American media, is facilitating the Republican Party's attack on China.

On February 26, the WSJ published an exclusive story, suggesting that a "classified intelligence report" recently provided to the White House and Congress claims that the U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic "most likely" arose from a laboratory leak in China. And that "according to people who have read the classified report," the Energy Department made the judgement with "low confidence."

The Republican politicians pounced. Republican Representative Ken Buck tweeted WSJ's report and stated that "the elites and academics owe everyone who had legitimate questions and concerns about the origins of COVID an apology." Jim Jordan, a staunch anti-China congressman, said with sarcasm: "So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along." Fox News published a piece specifically listing all the Republican politicians' responses to the story.

Fox News is also another conservative stronghold in American media.

That's not saying that there isn't similar sentiment coming from the Democrats. Democratic Representative Seth Molten said that he was "not entirely surprised" by the report, arguing that China has mishandled the pandemic "every step of the way." But the almost seamless one-two-punch from America's conservative media is telling.

One of the major themes that are uniting a fracturing Republican Party is China. Since the Republicans won the control of the House of Representatives, they've been constantly hounding China from various different angles. The most noticeable action is the formation of the select committee on China. In its most recent moves, Representative Mike Gallagher, who chairs the committee, and Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi said that they plan to "have a conversation" with NBA, Disney and other companies that have "substantial business interest in China."

Read: Republicans are trying to scare companies away from having large investments and engagements in China.

Not to mention, there had been reports and rumors that the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy intends to visit China's Taiwan region sometime soon. Though denied by himself, it had put significant strains on the China-U.S. relationship and is a provocation in itself even if it's just a report – Nancy Pelosi's last August trip also started as just a report.

The lab-leak accusations have long been denied by scientists and media alike. Forbes published an article in June 2021 titled the lab-leak a "conspiracy theory, not science." Danielle Anderson, an Australian virologist who did research in the lab weeks before the COVID-19 outbreak, dismissed the idea by stating that he believes the virus was "a natural acquired infection at some point somewhere." Peter Daszak, who led the World Health Organization's mission to Wuhan as part of a global study into the origins of the virus, called it "extremely unlikely" and that it was a unanimous conclusion.

Regurgitating this accusation now serves nothing more than a politically-charged campaign to motivate Republican-supporters. In addition, the accusation offers these politicians a ground to claim that they are being "tough on China." As Republicans have begun to declare their candidacy for president and started the 2024 presidential campaign, these kinds of attacks would only fan the frenzy – a frenzy that may serve the Republicans in the polls, but do damages to the U.S.'s relationship with China.

And clearly, the American media is an instrumental part of that plan.

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