That's not the first time, according the Times it also happened during the first SARS outbreak in 2003.
Over the last couple of weekends or so The Sunday Times ran stories about how WHO was subject to intense lobbying in 2017 by China, in particular how they literally sponsored (bought) and plotted to take control of WHO via their man, Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The man is easily influenced according to the Times (I'd say bent). All of this latest cozying up to WHO was in direct response to China's failure to come clean in 2003 and admit that the virus had somehow found it's way out into the public domain from a science setting.