A full year after an outbreak of a novel coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, the Chinese government last week finally relented to international pressure and granted access to a team of scientists from the WHO to investigate the origins of the disease. However, serious questions remain about whether the team would be able to carry out its investigation, free from the meddling hand of the Chinese state: The signs do not bode well.
The team was originally due to arrive at the beginning of this month; however, their visas were abruptly canceled while several of its members were already in transit. In July last year, two WHO scientists were allowed into China for three weeks, but were denied access to Wuhan and reportedly spent most of their time holed up in a hotel.
Chinese state media reports said that the scientists, who are now in China, would be allowed to stay for one month. However, half of this time would be spent in quarantine — although the 15 international sicentists had taken repeated COVID-19 tests in their own countries before traveling. This means they would have only two weeks to carry out their investigation.
Beijing is famous for harassing, surveilling and bugging foreign reporters investigating “sensitive” issues, such as human rights breaches or the mass incarceration of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang; the WHO team can expect similar treatment.
Beijing has already demonstrated that it is hell-bent on ensuring that blame for the pandemic is not pinned on China. Ever since the pandemic enveloped the globe, leaving a trail of death and economic destruction in its wake, Chinese officials have used their official Twitter accounts, state media and state-funded scientific research institutes to sow disinformation, stoke conspiracy theories and generally muddy the waters. This is what information warfare looks like in the 21st century.
Theories posited by the Chinese Communist Party propaganda machine include that the virus might have been released from a US Army biological defense research installation at Fort Detrick, Maryland; that it could be a dastardly plot cooked up by former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld; or that it could have originated in Italy, Spain, India, etc.
These are tactics straight out of the Kremlin’s cognitive warfare playbook, employed after the Russian Federation’s 2014 annexation of Crimea; its use of the nerve agent Novichok to poison Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter on UK soil in 2018; and the botched poisoning — again using Novichok — of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in August last year. The aim is to distract and discombobulate by flooding cybersphere with multiple alternative narratives that cause confusion, sow doubt and, ultimately, drown out the truth.
In addition to calling into question the origin of the virus, Chinese media outlets and politicians have waxed lyrical about China’s “superior” handling of the virus, while assiduously amplifying every crumb of criticism put forward by former US president Donald Trump’s political opponents. As a result, the global narrative shifted from criticizing Chinese leaders’ catastrophic failure to contain the virus, to guffawing at the Trump administration’s missteps as the US became overwhelmed by the pandemic.
On Friday last week, the US Department of State released a report calling into question the Chinese government’s initial official narrative that the virus came from a wet market in Wuhan. The report states that the US government has reason to believe the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after researchers there became sick as early as the fall of 2019 — well before the first officially identified case.
Whether the WHO investigators would reach the same conclusion — or even provided sufficient access to compile a meaningful investigation — remains to be seen. Based on past experience, do not hold your breath.
The rise of China as a major economy and military power has been a major development this century. While China’s economic clout is felt across the world, it has also been aggressively pursuing a military modernization program. One study published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies in May last year said that since 2016, China’s annual defense budget has been 7.2 to 8.1 percent of total government spending. Although China has projected its rise as peaceful, the truth is that Beijing has begun to redefine the power structure in Asia in its favor, leading some international relations
The Olympic Charter in the sixth Fundamental Principles of Olympism prohibits discrimination based on nationality or political opinion. It also requires that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) maintain political neutrality and take action against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic movement (rules 2.5, 2.6 and 16.1.3). The Japanese Olympic Committeeis required to ensure the observance of the charter and take action against discrimination carried out within Japan (Rule 27.2). The committees are failing to carry out their missions. Athletes from Taiwan are discriminated against on the basis of their nationality, and it must stop. Every country that participates in the
With a new US president in the White House, Beijing might have to rethink its approach toward Taiwan following a public meeting on Feb. 10 between Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and a US Department of State official. Prior to his inauguration on Jan. 20, there was little known about what then-US president-elect Joe Biden’s China policy would be, and there were reports that Beijing had hoped to influence members of the incoming administration over Taiwan and other areas of contention. A BBC report on Dec. 3 last year cited a US intelligence official as saying that China
Communist China’s Global Times warned US President Joe Biden in the first week of this month that he “should make a significant response to China’s sincerity within his first 100 days, as the sincerity and patience will not last forever.” In fact, they lasted only days. By the end of the week, Beijing had laid down the law, so to speak, to the Biden administration. First was a speech billed as a “Dialogue with National Committee on US-China Relations,” by Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪), director of China’s Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs. Yang said he was pleased “to have
RSS