Competitive narratives about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a factor of the COVID-19 pandemic politicization in international relations
Keywords:
coronavirus; origin; version; the USA; the PRC; politicizationAbstract
The international relations during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding identifying the SARS-CoV-2 origin are analyzed in the article. Special attention is paid to the American-Chinese political rivalry in spreading own vision of coronavirus nature during a formal WHO investigation, as the USA promotes the hypothesis of lab-leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the PRC denies. It is concluded that such a conflict of interests between the USA and the PRC laid the foundation for the COVID-19 pandemic politicization. The author proposes the periodization of the problem of coronavirus origin politicization in 2020-2021 based on the frequency and context references to the coronavirus origin in the media and speeches of politicians and diplomats, the content analysis of which became the main method of research.
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