Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian asked the Pentagon, on 8 March 2022, to provide an explanation for the 336 biological laboratories it operates under various designations in 30 countries.

The United States, which signed and ratified the UN Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, has impeded any international inspection of its military biological laboratories for 20 years.

Russia has just seized about 15 such laboratories located in Ukraine and destroyed a stockpile of 320 pathogen containers.