China has accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of lying following his comments about the coronavirus beginning in a Wuhan laboratory.

Pompeo had said there was ‘significant evidence’ that this was the true source of the disease, rather than the theory that it began in the city's wet markets.

Yesterday China's state media hit back, strongly denying the accusations and labelling Pompeo a ‘liar’ and ‘evil’.  

Newscaster Li Zimeng said: “US Secretary of State Pompeo picked up his own lies in a May 3 interview with the media.

“If the cheating behaviours from evil politicians like Pompeo continue, the US’s ‘Make America Great Again’ could become merely a joke.”

While the Xinhua News Agency accused Pompeo of speaking ‘nonsense’ and China Central Television said he was ‘spitting poison’.

Pompeo made his comments just hours before President Donald Trump once again blamed China and the World Health Organisation in an interview with Fox News on Sunday.

He said: "The World Health Organisation has been a disaster. Everything they said was wrong and they're China-centric.

"All they do is agree with China, whatever China wants to do. So our country, perhaps foolishly in retrospect has been paying $450 million a year to the World Health Organisation and China's been paying $38 million a year but they were more political than all of our leaders previously.

“What they did, what the World Health did, was they missed every single call and we're not going to put up with it.”

And although China has criticised Pompeo and other senior US officials, they are yet to directly attack Trump for his comments.

Beijing's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang did however tell reporters: “[Certain US politicians] have attempted to shift their own responsibility for their poor handling of the epidemic to others.”

The relationship between the two countries has disintegrated rapidly since January they were negotiating a trade deal and, in February Trump praised China's President Xi Jinping for his response to the pandemic.