A leading Italian official is saying he is not sure close economic ties with China caused the catastrophe and is asserting the virus may have come from Germany at a time when China is seeking inroads into Europe and downplaying its role in the contagion.

“It is now too soon to go to the root causes that eventually created the conditions for the initial spreading of the virus,” Italian Ambassador to the United States Armando Varricchio said Thursday. “There are so many opportunities. There are so many gates from where the virus might have reached Italy.”

Varricchio noted that some reports suggest that the first coronavirus patient in Italy may have contracted the illness in Germany.

“It’s too soon,” he said. “To take the appropriate measures to avoid future events, it is important, when the crisis is over, to collect all the information data so that it will be possible to trace the origins of this virus that I think is affecting and hitting my country so heavily. "

There is evidence the virus may have originated from a patient who came from Germany. Nevertheless, there are many Chinese workers in Italy, and the first confirmed cases in Italy were two Chinese tourists in Rome who tested positive after visiting the northern part of the country where two regions were locked down as the outbreak worsened.

“There are, depending on who you ask, tens of thousands of Chinese migrant laborers in Italy, specifically northern Italy, which is where the coronavirus has been especially bad,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior analyst in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “Whether or not they have been a vector for coronavirus is something that absolutely will merit discussion once we are over this initial crisis point.”

Northern Italy has robust economic ties to China that predate the Belt and Road Initiative.

Italy joined Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vaunted Belt and Road Initiative last year, a landmark move that drew criticism from U.S. officials who regard the international infrastructure project as a stalking horse for the communist regime’s geopolitical ambitions. Chinese officials lobbied partners to maintain standard relations with China in the early days of the pandemic, which originated in Hubei province, and some Italian analysts believe the government was slow to take certain countermeasures to curb the virus.

"There was a proposal to isolate people coming from the epicenter, coming from China,” Dr. Giorgio Palù, a leading Italian virologist, told CNN. "Then, it became seen as racist, but they were people coming from the outbreak.”

Chinese officials didn’t hide their anger when Italy suspended direct flights from China on Jan. 31. “Such practice has caused great inconvenience for both peoples, as evidenced by many Chinese citizens still stranded in Italy,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Qin Gang complained. “The Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied with the overreaction and restrictions of the Italian side.”

The vice foreign minister also emphasized that China “requires” Italian officials “to act from the perspective of long-term bilateral exchanges and the general picture of cooperation and stop introducing new restrictive measures.”

Chinese officials delivered those rebukes after weeks of censoring reports about the outbreak in Wuhan. Those actions have contributed to a diplomatic controversy between Beijing and Washington, as Chinese diplomats and propaganda outlets have tried to suggest that the U.S. Army started the epidemic in Wuhan.

“Look, the disinformation campaign that they are waging is designed to shift responsibility,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday. “It took an awful long time for the world to become aware of this risk that was sitting there residing inside of China.”

China has dispatched doctors to Italy in recent days, as Chinese diplomats try to position their country as an international leader in the coronavirus outbreak. “The Chinese are already thinking about, what will the world look like in the post-COVID world and where does China need to be?” Cheng said.