Here is China making a coronavirus like the one causing the pandemic, even acting on the ACE2 receptor and testing it in human cells, publishing it in early 2008: https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899
Here they are again, years later, still playing with extremely hazardous coronaviruses that act on the ACE2 receptor in humans:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711
This one gene-edits the host cells to have both human and bat traits, making it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6
There are more. The ASM's virology journal published more of generally the same kind of stuff. I can't find the link right now.