claim: china spins tale that the u.s. army started the coronavirus epidemic
summary: the twitter account of zhao lijian, @zlj517, a ministry spokesman, spread tweets sharing links on the us army spreading the virus on purpose. this, according to the nyt, is part of chinese officials' action to blame the us in order to cover their wrongdoings during the first period after the outbreak.
subject_description: the us army spread the virus on purpose when visiting wuhan in october 2019
Motive_Description: a chinese official effort to undermine the us government in the international arena
author_description: zhao lijian
keywords: coronavirus, us, china, origin