China calls on U.S. to explain Nord Stream pipeline destruction

China has called on the US to clarify the situation to the international community if Seymour Hersh's claims regarding US intelligence being behind the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines are accurate.

Hersh, a celebrated investigative journalist, recently wrote an article alleging that the pipelines were blown up as part of a secret operation by the US military.

Based on Hersh's sources, US Navy divers reportedly placed the explosives during the BALTOPS 22 NATO drill in June 2022, and detonated them three months later via a remote signal from a sonar buoy.

According to one of Hersh's sources, those involved in the covert operation were aware that it constituted an "act of war." Some individuals within the CIA and the State Department reportedly voiced their concerns, stating “Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.”

Currently, Beijing is calling for the White House to provide a response to the matter, apparently dissatisfied with the Biden administration's unsatisfactory response, which simply dismissed the story as “false.”

On Friday, the spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, stated that if the report proves to be true, the US government will be held accountable.

“If the conclusions of the investigation are true, then the US behavior is unacceptable,” Mao told reporters, adding that the US would need to “explain itself to the world community.”

“It proves that some US media outlets do not care what the truth is. They are deaf to the truth that really matters, and what is loudly hyped by them is often not the truth, but a false narrative,” Mao said, when asked to comment on the western media’s silence over the investigation.