The discourse of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons is not only an important means to convey China’s attitude, but also one of the important subjects to construct China’s national image. The discourse of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons conveys China’s value orientation to the whole world. From the perspective of critical pragmatics, this article aims to analyze how the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons construct China’s national image in the aspect of discourse with the support of speech act theory. Taking the origin-tracing issue of COVID-19 as an example, the study found that the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons use the performative verbs of assertives, dierctives and commissives in their discourse to construct a responsible China’s national image of seeking truth from facts, acting transparently, respecting for science and actively carrying out cooperation.