China is not participating in a UN project to survey Asian wet markets and other facilities at high risk of spreading infectious diseases from wild animals to humans, despite long-running talks with Beijing, a UN official said.
China’s hesitancy to join the UN project involving other Asian nations might compound frustration by global researchers, who have been pressing Beijing to share information about the origins of COVID-19, as they seek to prevent future pandemics due to animal-to-human disease transmission.
Four Asian countries — China, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos — were initially selected for the survey by the scientific advisory committee of the project, called the Safety across Asia For the global Environment (SAFE), because they host multiple facilities presenting risks of animal-to-human disease transmission, the UN official said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The selection for the project, launched in July 2021, was also made after major wildlife trafficking cases were detected, investigated and prosecuted in those countries, which increased zoonotic risks, the official said.
“China was initially in discussions to be part of the project,” the official said, declining to be named as the information was deemed sensitive.
The official said discussions with China are still ongoing, but did not clarify with which state institution the UN project is holding talks.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese National Forestry and Grasslands Administration, which oversees the management of wildlife and was involved in initial talks with the project organizers, did not respond to requests for comment.
The official said the forestry agency initially showed interest in the project, but eventually declined to join, saying it was not under its remit.
The agency did not indicate which government agencies would be responsible for the matter, the official said.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which monitors illegal wildlife trafficking and coordinates the SAFE project, did not immediately comment.
After COVID-19 first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, many researchers suspected it spread in a live animal market there.
China has since banned the sale and consumption for food of wild animals.
Despite the ban, experts warn that risks still remain.
“There are glaring holes in the restrictions that still pose a zoonotic disease risk,” said Peter Li, a China policy specialist at Humane Society International, a US-based nonprofit organization.
He said China still allows wildlife breeding on a massive scale for the fur trade, traditional medicine, pet trade and entertainment or display in low-welfare conditions.
China’s public security agencies handled more than 70,000 criminal cases involving wild animals from 2020 to last year, confiscating 1.37 million wild animals in the process, Xinhua news agency reported.
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