YES.
The hamfisted denying overreaching lying response was totally deliberate. That is enough for me.
Trying to escape US controls on this evil work was also deliberate.
My theory-
They were working on a population control super-bug AND the vaccine for it, but it escaped before it was time to be released. The Chicoms then decided if they were going to suffer with it, they weren’t going down alone, and sent it out into the rest of the world.
Just my theory