President Xi Jinping said he wanted to focus on strengthening the army while also maintaining work to control the coronavirus epidemic, state media reported.
"Even the possibility that a non-genetically-engineered precursor could have adapted to humans while being studied in a laboratory should be considered," the authors of the study wrote.
The European Union's foreign policy chief cautioned member states against allowing China to take advantage of diplomatic divisions between them in order to impose their "state-centric" stance.
Reports of Kim's deteriorating health will be unwelcome to the Chinese president, who is already grappling with diplomatic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The WHO appears to be far too beholden to China—praising when it should be criticizing and looking the other way at Beijing's obfuscation and irresponsibility.
Trump is halting U.S. funding of WHO after previous administrations' "benign neglect" policy allowed Beijing to mislead the organization, with deadly consequences.
China's handling of the SARS outbreak raised transparency concerns with the new coronavirus outbreak but officials have stood behind China for taking all the necessary steps.
Tsai's victory is a clear and loud message to Beijing: the Taiwanese care more about freedom and democracy than anything else. Beijing will try and make them pay, in more ways than one.