'FAKE NEWS': China blasted as mystery scientist turns out to be bogus

Chinese state media has been left red-faced after several publications accused the US of manipulation during Covid-19 origin investigations by quoting a scientist who does not exist.

Amid a continued bitter war of words between the US and China over where the virus first emerged, Chinese state media quoted a Swiss scientist named Wilson Edwards, who is said to have written on Facebook the US was "obsessed with attacking China" and would ignore the real data and findings of any investigation.

However the Embassy of Switzerland in Beijing not only questioned the quotes used, but also believed Edwards was a made-up scientist entirely.

“Looking for Wilson Edwards, alleged (Swiss) biologist, cited in press and social media in China over the last several days," it tweeted.

“If you exist, we would like to meet you!”

The embassy suggested Chinese state media was responsible for "fake news", however did not indicate it believed it was done intentionally.

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A message inserted with the post, written in English and Chinese, said no Swiss citizen named Wilson Edwards appeared on registries or academic articles from the biology field.

It said the Facebook account where comments attributed to Wilson were published was only opened on July 24.

It called on state media to remove any reference to the scientist.

Human Rights Watch China researcher Yaqiu Wang said on Twitter the incident showed Beijing's "machinery of repression lies primarily in being brutal, not being smart".

Pierre-Alain Eltschinger, a spokesman for the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, said several publications have retracted the quotes, however it was still viewable on some platforms.

An authenticated Facebook account of the People’s Daily, China newspaper still had an English language reference to an article from CGTN, the international arm of the Chinese state broadcaster, quoting Wilson.

In the CGTN article, Wilson was quoted as saying he and fellow researchers had faced pressure and intimidation from the US for their support of the findings of the World Health Organisation-led visit to Wuhan, where experts concluded the virus was likely to have been imported into Wuhan via an intermediary source.

Throughout the pandemic the US has repeatedly pushed the outlandish theory the virus was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a suggestion that has enraged Beijing.

While it was largely dismissed by Western experts during the initial Wuhan visit, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later said the matter should not be closed entirely and further investigations were needed.

Australia and US to 'collude' over virus origins, Global Times says

Chinese state publication the Global Times, a renowned mouthpiece of Beijing and one of the newspapers to scrub any reference of Edwards, said on Tuesday its sources had revealed the Biden administration was asking intelligence agencies to "make up" evidence to discredit China and its early response to the virus.

According to the source, the nationalistic tabloid said Washington is planning on "colluding with its allies such as Australia and media outlets to suppress China, in an attempt to accuse the Chinese government of 'concealing the truth of the virus' origins'".

Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times the US was attempting to engage in a "sick political war" as it looks for someone to blame for its own failings in handling the pandemic.

China's foreign ministry has since ramped up its own rhetoric around the theory the virus emerged from US military base Fort Detrick.

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