By now it is pretty clear what happened actually. The U.S. funded creation of a custom made pathogen which had the right genetics to justify the ACE2 receptor associated gene therapy they had ready to go.
The money for the work was laundered through Daszak's 'Eco-Health Alliance' and was it was much more heavily funded by the DOD than it was Fausti/Collin's NIH.
All the Chinese had to do was to electronically send over the 'sequence' that Moderna wanted and within a few DAYS they had an injection ready. Isolating the 'virus' was not even necessary. The other thing they had to do was some theatrics with people supposedly dropping dead in the streets and trucks spraying chemicals around.
Within a month or two China had miraculously solved their problems and were having 1000 person pool-parties to celebrate. Life was good, and so was business since what little of the competition which still existed in 'the west' entered a multi-year shutdown. Certainly that happy result would be enough for China to play 'bat soup eater' for a year.
Anyone who falsely believes that 'their' government/military/etc is on their side has no real hope. All of the 'nations' work together at the upper management level, and they all work for themselves and their actual friends/sponsors.