The Chinese have largely themselves to blame for the current suspicions against them. If they had been transparent from the start, the speculations would have been far fewer.
As an aside, I’m not taking a side in “blame” on China. I’m really only talking about the public opinion side of things. The cause of the fire was found through an investigation, and had nothing to do with the mob “crowdsourced” sleuthing. And the mob kept changing its mind as to who is to blame.
Sounds to me a lot like NYTimes saying one time “of course it’s not China you bigoted racist” to “ooh questions are being asked and it’s suspicious we don’t have answers” without any real change in available evidence.
Like the leading idea is that it occurred naturally, and there's heavy emphasis on it starting in that wet market. More than enough ammo already for the mob to hate on Chinese people, and sadly that's what happened and has been happening.
Suppressing inquiry into a possible source of the pandemic seems more like political shenanigans than some vague effort to save the population from harm.
All the while this was happening, among the fire, the chaos of people fighting fire, people rushing away from the fire, or saving their belongings, there was a mob trying to lynch the presumed perpetrators. First it was the French and the Dutch immigrants, but throughout the saga, Poles, Jews, Catholics and other "aliens" were pursued. The presumed perpetrators changed without much rhyme or reason, merely according to whichever rumour was currently peaking, as the mob, and the fire, continued their steady march. All while the city was ablaze.
Interestingly enough, the cause of the fire is now known, and really should have been known at the time: it started from a small-ish fire at a bakery on Pudding Lane - a street that still exists, since central London was rebuilt on much the same street layout. It started small, but due to indecision wasn't tackled properly, grew a little, then grew a lot, then turned into an all-devouring beast that could not be stopped.
Some things don't really change.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London