Your understanding is that a large conspiracy of various Western and Chinese (and others?) federal institutes have conspired to uphold a fake story because the Western officials funding the Chinese research don't want the world to know that their money was somehow involved?

It doesn't take too many data points to at least make you suspicious. It's not a conspiracy theory.

We know Peter Daszak lied about his involvement in this research. We know Fauci made decisions about coronavirus research. We know the NIH funded coronavirus research in wuhan. The chinese took their virus database offline. They refused any serious investigation. The batwoman has disappeared. All these organisations have a lot to lose if it was partly their fault for this pandemic. Yet at they same time they hold the keys to any serious investigation.

This does NOT mean that this is proof that it was a lab leak. But it is extremely suspicious behaviour and circumstances. At a minimum it should warrant serious pressure to investigate what happened.