As politicians squabble over who is to blame for a nationwide spike in COVID-19 infections since earlier this month, it is important not to forget where the virus originated and who is responsible for a manifestly containable epidemic mushrooming into a ruinous global pandemic.
Eighteen eminent scientists, including a Stanford University microbiologist and Harvard University epidemiologist, in an open letter published in Science on May 13 called into question the WHO’s conclusion that it is “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. In the letter, the scientists wrote that theories of accidental release remain “viable” and deserve “a proper investigation.”
Further evidence over the murky origins of the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced on Sunday last week when the Wall Street Journal reported that it had obtained passages of a US intelligence report, which found that three researchers at the laboratory sought treatment at a hospital as early as November 2019 — one month before China reported the first cases of COVID-19.
Beijing has categorically denied that the virus emanated from China’s first level 4 biosafety laboratory, and initially pushed the hypothesis that the virus had “jumped” from animals to humans at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which is just 12km from the laboratory. Chinese officials later orchestrated a disinformation campaign, flooding the Internet with wild and unsubstantiated theories, including that the virus was “bioengineered” by the US military.
Far too many politicians, scientists, media and technology companies were too quick to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory, either swallowing Chinese propaganda hook, line and sinker, or cynically exploiting the issue for political purposes. As a result, more than a year into the pandemic, the international community is still no closer to discovering the origins of the virus.
Facebook — a tech company that has somehow become the arbiter of truth in the digital age — on Wednesday announced that it had lifted a ban on posts and news articles on the lab leak theory, having previously determined it to be false and misleading. However, Facebook was not the only entity guilty of stifling proper debate and investigation into the virus’ origins.
On entering office, US President Joe Biden’s administration shut down an investigation into the lab leak theory initiated by his predecessor. However, on Tuesday, US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci appeared to pave the way for a U-turn on the theory. During a testimony to a US Senate panel, Fauci acknowledged that US funding might have been used for controversial “gain-of-function” research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab. Then, on Wednesday, prior to Facebook’s volte-face, Biden confirmed the U-turn by instructing US intelligence agencies to “redouble” their efforts into discovering the root cause of the virus and deliver findings within 90 days.
However, the most serious aspect to this affair is that US taxpayers might have inadvertently funded biowarfare research at the Wuhan laboratory. Given that it is official Chinese Communist Party policy to promote “military-civil fusion,” that no independent access to the laboratory is allowed and that US intelligence agencies previously said that they believe Beijing is conducting a covert biological weapons program, the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from the lab, and might be linked to military research, should be taken seriously.
COVID-19 could be the world’s first instance of “accidental biowarfare” — an involuntary leak that was capitalized on by Beijing to further its strategic interests and damage its archenemy, the US. Chinese generals have a term for this: They call it “unrestricted warfare.”
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they