• On Thursday, Chinese media pounced on a Russian claim that the US tested bat coronaviruses in Ukrainian laboratories.
• The supposed findings have provided China with an avenue to support its narrative on COVID-19's origin.
• Vampires and 'secret US bio-weapons labs' have also emerged in the conspiracy theories touted in China.

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Cross a love for vampires with the invasion of Ukraine, and one ends up with secret US biological weapons that led to the spread of COVID-19, at least according to Chinese social media users and state-affiliated news outlets.

"There is no smoke without fire," the Chinese Communist Party-linked tabloid Global Times wrote in an opinion piece published Thursday.

"Some netizens commented that the Americans seem to have a special preference for making vampire-themed movies, and the prototype of the vampire comes from bat. The Americans' experiments with bat coronavirus have cultural origins," said the piece.

The Times article is the latest in China's coverage of the Kremlin's claims that it has uncovered "evidence that the US was involved in biological weapons research in Ukrainian labs" — a debunked conspiracy theory linked to far-right website InfoWars and Twitter users.

Chinese media...

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