Here is China making a coronavirus like the one causing the pandemic, even acting on the ACE2 receptor and testing it in human cells, publishing it in early 2008:

https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899

Here they are again, years later, still playing with extremely hazardous coronaviruses that act on the ACE2 receptor in humans:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711

This one gene-edits the host cells to have both human and bat traits, making it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6

>https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6

It's not correct to call insertion of a plasmid to be gene editing of a host cell, though this could be arguably pedantic.

I'm curious how you concluded that what they did made it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses?