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THE DEBATE | POLITICS | SECURITY | EAST ASIA
Did Xi Jinping Deliberately Sicken the World?
PRC moral turpitude forces us to consider the unthinkable.
Ben Lowsen
April 15, 2020
Did Xi Jinping Deliberately Sicken the World?
A member of a Chinese honor guard wears a face mask as he stands guard on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020.
We often ascribe a basic level of humanity to even the cruelest leaders, but People’s Republic of China leader Xi Jinping’s actions have forced us to rethink this assumption. Although the emergence of the novel coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-2 was probably not due to China’s actions, the emphasis that its authoritarian system places on hiding bad news likely gave the disease a sizable head start infecting the world. But most ominously, China’s obsession with image and Machtpolitik raises serious questions about its lack of moral limits.
At some point the Chinese Communist Party learned of the epidemic and made a decision to hide its existence, hoping it went away. Exposés in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and the Chinese mainland’s Caixin show that the information that did flow out of China early in the crisis did so only because of the courage of individual Chinese people in the face of government repression. People in the Wuhan epicenter, however, began to get wise — and scared (here and here) — by the end of December 2019, forcing their government to say something. The authorities gave the impression of a nontransmissible disease already under containment. We know now this was entirely false, likely designed more to ease civil unrest than protect the people.
The mayor of Wuhan even suggested that the central government prevented him from revealing details about the epidemic until January 20. Considering the first public announcements came out of Wuhan on January 1, we can assume that Xi had a sense of the danger prior to that.
Clearly, downplaying the disease wasn’t working and it was time for the Party to get serious. But how serious? Would it provide full cooperation to the international community? Would being seen as the source of this virus hurt its international image? Beyond these, there was a darker dimension: the more Beijing cooperated, the less the disease stood to affect other countries. This includes countries China sees as a threat to its existence, like the United States. Why should China suffer the effects of a pandemic while others stayed safe — and increased their strength relative to China — based on China’s own costly experience?
Such a question is of course inimical to human decency. And yet we must consider that Xi Jinping has produced the greatest program of ethnic cleansing in the world today. He has curtailed freedoms in China severely and is the father of the panopticon state. His incessant military buildup threatens neighbors while using economic and other subversive means to erode the sovereignty of countries around the world. We should not assume it was beyond his imagining to withhold a degree of support from the international community to ensure that China would not suffer alone.
Strong evidence supports this idea. Hearing the World Health Organization (WHO) repeat and praise the Party line while giving short shrift to health advice until quite recently has alarmed many. Seeing Beijing sell defective wares and claim it as humanitarian aid has angered many more. Spreading disinformation during the crisis and hinting at using life-saving goods for leverage (original here) — while denying even the faintest hint of wrongdoing — I suspect have ruined China’s reputation for some time to come. In short, China’s good offices have been reserved almost entirely for burnishing its image at the world’s expense, while calling it “the greatest kindness and good deeds.”
None of this can prove whether or when Xi made a deliberate decision to withhold information in order to imperil others. However, as a long-time student and admirer of China, it is with great sadness I must concede that such a state — and its increasingly paranoid leader — might very well provide less than full cooperation to stem the pandemic of the century in the crass pursuit of its own interests. This may constitute biological warfare. But even if it doesn’t Xi should be brought to account for his other crimes against humanity.
The views expressed in this paper represent the personal views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Department of Defense or of the Department of the Air Force.
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State Department leaked cables renew theories on origin of coronavirus
By Barnini Chakraborty | Fox News
US sounded alarm on Wuhan lab studying coronavirus two years ago, report says
State Department cables obtained by The Washington Post warned about the safety and security of coronavirus testing on bats in China in 2018; Gillian Turner reports.
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A Chinese laboratory at the center of new theories about how the coronavirus pandemic started was the subject of multiple urgent warnings inside the U.S. State Department two years ago, according to a new report.
U.S. Embassy officials warned in January 2018 about inadequate safety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab and passed on information about scientists conducting risky research on coronavirus from bats, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
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Those cables have renewed speculation inside the U.S. government about whether Wuhan-based labs were the source of the novel coronavirus, although no firm connection has been established. The theory, however, has gained traction in recent days.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday afternoon, "It should be no surprise to you that we have taken a keen interest in that and we've had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that. I would just say at this point, it's inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we don't know for certain."
Dr. Saphier: Bad information from China, WHO led to mitigation 'hiccups'Video
The United Kingdom has said that the idea that the virus, which has turned into a full-blown global pandemic, was leaked from a Wuhan lab is "no longer being discounted."
A member of the U.K. government's emergency committee of senior officials claimed Sunday: "There is a credible alternative view (to the zoonotic theory) based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is a laboratory in Wuhan."
Foreign affairs expert Gordon Chang said in a recent opinion piece on Fox News that "many Chinese believe the virus either was deliberately released or accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a P4-level bio-safety facility."
He added: "This lab, known for studying coronaviruses, is not far from the market that had been initially identified as the source of the outbreak."
In a series of diplomatic cables labeled "Sensitive But Unclassified," U.S. Embassy officials warned that the lab had massive management weaknesses, posed severe health risks and warned Washington to get involved.
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The first cable, which was obtained by the Post, also sent red flags about the lab's work on bat coronaviruses and more specifically how their potential human transmission represented the risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.
"During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory," the Jan.19, 2018 cable, written by two officials from the embassy's environment, science and health sections who met with the WIV scientists, said.
The cable argued that the United States should give Chinese researchers at the Wuhan lab more support because its research on bat coronaviruses was important and dangerous. The lab had already been receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
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The cable also called attention to Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project, who in November 2017 published a paper that showed the horseshoe bats collected from a case in Yunnan province were most likely from the same bat population that had been behind the first SARS coronavirus in 2003.
The cable states that "the researchers also showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus. This finding strongly suggests that SARS-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like diseases. From a public health perspective, this makes the continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention."
China censoring research on COVID-19 origins, deleted page on Wuhan University website suggestsVideo
Despite evidence that points to dangerous practices inside the Wuhan labs, top U.S. military brass, as well as other senior officials, have told Fox News that the origins of COVID-19 did not come from a laboratory nor was it the result of a bioweapon.
"And if I could just be clear, there is nothing to that," Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Friedrichs told Fox News last week. "Someone asked me if I was worried. That is not something that I'm worried about. I think, you know, right now what we're concerned about is how do we treat people who are sick, how do we prevent people from getting sick. But no, I am not worried about this as a bioweapon."
Still, there are others who have been trying to trace the origin of the novel coronavirus back to the Wuhan lab.
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
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