> If they had nothing to hide, they wouldn't be hiding everything. If that was a criminal case, this kind of behavior would be taken as a evidence of guilt.

No, it would not. First, dictatorships hide things all the time, whether there is something or nothing. It's just how they operate. (Many democratic governments do to btw. How often do we need freedom of information requests just to find out that it was totally benign, the government just stone-walled because they could).

Second, not saying anything is not evidence of guilt in any criminal case in the civilized world. Everyone has the right to silence.

Governments aren't people. They don't have rights. Same for corporations.

Governments have neither rights nor duties, so saying they don't owe you anything is essentially the same thing. Governments do what they can get away with doing.

"Your honor, you can't blame my client for messing the victim's body, he's a known necrophiliac, and since the evidence is tainted you can't prove he was the murderer."

Top notch defense right there.

Pretty gross, but yeah a defense like that would lower charges to manslaughter.

They have witheld records from the NIH which funded some of their SARS-related coronaviruses spillover research. They eventually terminated their subaward last year as a result. WHO has also been asking for lab data. Given the nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and Laos where the WIV sampled it seems fairly clear what happened here.

https://thebulletin.org/2022/08/nih-to-terminate-ecohealth-a...

Countries and governments are not individuals. The fact that a virus emerged in China and proceeded to kill millions of people globally and the Chinese government has completely obstructed any independent investigation is outrageous and criminal. You don't get to throw your arms up and say "No Entry" when millions of lives have been lost.