SYDNEY • All member nations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) should support a proposed independent review into the coronavirus pandemic, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday, further threatening strained ties with China.

Australia has become one of most forceful critics of Beijing for its handling of the spread of the coronavirus, with Mr Morrison urging several world leaders to support an international inquiry into its origins and spread, as well as the WHO's response.

The Covid-19 outbreak originated in China and has since spread to infect some 2.6 million people globally and killed nearly 180,000. Beijing has fiercely rejected calls for an inquiry, describing the efforts as US-led propaganda against China.

Mr Morrison said all members of the WHO should be obliged to participate in a review, adding that Australia would push for the inquiry during the WHO Assembly on May 17.

"We'd like the world to be safer when it comes to viruses... I would hope that any other nation, be it China or anyone else, would share that objective," Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

China is Australia's largest trading partner, but diplomatic relations have frayed in recent years amid allegations that Beijing has committed cyber attacks and has attempted to interfere in Canberra's domestic affairs.

"The so-called independent inquiry proposed by Australia is in reality political manipulation," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a daily news briefing in Beijing yesterday. "We advise Australia to give up its ideological prejudices," he added.

Australia's calls for an inquiry will win favour with the White House - which has been critical of China and the WHO's handling of the pandemic, and has withdrawn US funding from the UN agency.

China said yesterday that it will donate an additional US$30 million (S$43 million) to the WHO.

There also seems to be less enthusiasm for an inquiry in Europe, with both France and Britain saying now is not the time to apportion blame.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday said the WHO is an "indispensable partner" and the country supports its mandate.

Her views were echoed by the EU's top diplomat.

"The priority has to be facing the pandemic, saving lives, containing this spread. We will only defeat the pandemic through global efforts and cooperation, and this cooperation cannot be jeopardised by blaming one or the other about the origins," the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told a video news conference.

Mr Morrison's comments came just hours after one of his senior government officials called on the Group of 20 (G-20) nations to end wet markets selling wildlife over concerns that they pose a threat to human health and agricultural markets.

It is believed that the outbreak in China started in a wet market that also sells wildlife in the city of Wuhan. Wet markets are a key facet of China's daily life, though not all sell wildlife.

China imposed a temporary ban on the selling of wildlife on Jan 23, and is now reviewing its laws to restrict commercial wild animal trading on a permanent basis.

Australia's Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud yesterday said he had asked government officials from the G-20 major economies to back a plan to end wildlife wet markets.

US officials have also called for wildlife wet markets across Asia to be closed. Wet markets throughout Asia sell fresh vegetables, seafood and meat, with some also selling exotic animals.

REUTERS