My take on it...
The question asked controls the answer...
There's not really am obvious point in asking the question about origin... as it leads no where. So, posing it, now... is mostly a distraction... a delaying action, perhaps... but, it avoids narrowing options by going nowhere important... while allowing sustained engagement in getting there...
Among the "no where important" places it might lead to... includes agreements... "we need more transparency" or "we need better oversight of labs" or "labs need to be isolated from population centers better"... etc. It should lead to global agreement on ending gain of function research... which it is stupid to have ever allowed... stupid for China to have allowed... but not uniquely stupid of China. Obviously, it will need to lead to agreement on better controlling containment of dangerous work that scientists try to make easier to conduct by downplaying the risks they impose... and, it should lead to agreement... that the scientists not be allowed to regulate themselves or write their own rules... all of which threatens no one.
Given China's continued stonewalling on information from the lab... the question on origins can lead to the singular answer that "there's a stonewall being imposed"... proving a lack of cooperation... which, in the circumstances... others will correctly, if belatedly, be interpreted as a threat. It might also lead to "China shared the information with us, which information will remain confidential"...
The legal divisions enabled for that sort of thing exist here already... as process for determining liability has one set of standards applied... while process enabling safety has another... and the boundaries are respected... because truth enabling greater safety is a more important good than blame determining liability...
The experience of Covid, one might hope, will slow the roll of morons everywhere who think biowarfare is a good idea... when it is necessarily accompanied by an excess in hubris enabling it, including clearly insufficient safety concern... when reality rules, not by hubris, but by the law of unintended consequences...
But, there are opportunities that exists there, in asking the question on origins... if there is cooperation in result... for which there must be something other than a stonewall to enable that deflection into something recognizable as progress... in cooperation on safety... versus conflict over liability, and where that leads.
That's why that's the question in focus, now... instead of other, far easier to answer questions that might be asked... the answers to which might prove to have implications that are a lot less able to be deflected or avoided... and that will rapidly become far more controlling of politicians future options ?
Lawyers... don't ask questions they don't know the answer to... but seek the answers they know for the sudden impact resulting from the answers when they are provided to others.
Politicians do the opposite... asking questions they know will lead nowhere, ponderously... rather than ask questions that might reduce their room for maneuver, or force them into asking questions, or taking actions, they don't want to take ?
But, the circumstances define the range in available questions... here leaving only two... origins, and intent... with only one of those having a "no fault" potential interpretation...
So, mismanagement of the one potential... answers... and will be interpreted as answering the other...
China has a problem with competing interests... between what is critical re the domestic audience, for the thugs to sustain control and justify themselves... and what the result of errors made might be, including easily made errors in choices in cooperation or communication, where the impact will be in the external interpretation...
Cooperation on safety... the only obvious no risk opportunity that exists...
China made a huge mistake... in February of 2020...
How it plays out, from here, is not under China's direct control... but, the question is a door...
And, the question asked now... offers a chance to provide an answer... which contains one potential...
If the answer is a stone wall... then the other question will be asked... by lawyers not politicians.
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