Starting on March 12, 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry official Zhao Lijian posted several tweets alleging that the coronavirus had in fact originated in the U.S. On March 13, he shared a link to conspiracy website that tied the virus’ apparition to the US Army biological defense laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland. Over the course of following months and as recently as December 2020, other officials, including Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, and Chinese state media repeatedly returned to these baseless allegations.