Coronavirus: the Chinese Political Angle

[Oracle]

More like don't care.
I'm not as emotionally tied to China as you are.
It's just a job.

Well, communist China is an enemy state and I've never been emotionally attached to dictators and authoritarian leaders. I don't get paid to write pro-China articles. Just my job to expose PRC for what it is actually - a modern day communist Nazi state.

[DOR]

Well, communist China is an enemy state and I've never been emotionally attached to dictators and authoritarian leaders. I don't get paid to write pro-China articles. Just my job to expose PRC for what it is actually - a modern day communist Nazi state.

So, you imply that I am paid to write pro-China articles?
Care to cite any?

And, by the way, when did some random country declaring (?) China to be an "enemy state" ever stop anyone from examining what that country is, does, or might do? Seems to me such a situation would call for more -- not less -- analysis.

[Oracle]

So, you imply that I am paid to write pro-China articles?
Care to cite any?

You said that yourself. Btw, you get paid for writing pro-PRC articles? Good for you, might be your reputation for living in HK for years. I get nothing, exposing PRC to be the communist Nazi regime it is.

And, by the way, when did some random country declaring (?) China to be an "enemy state" ever stop anyone from examining what that country is, does, or might do? Seems to me such a situation would call for more -- not less -- analysis.

Then, why:
1. snipe my posts
2. all 50 centres who sign-up know you
3. even after being ignored, you still troll me and my posts
4. you cannot agree with me on democracy Vs authoritarian regimes

There must be some streak of extreme something in you, that makes you what you are. Extreme-left? Communist? I don't know, I won't make a guess, your posts make it perfectly clear. Time for you to find out who you are, which direction you're headed. Time for some self-introspection.

[DOR]

You said that yourself. Btw, you get paid for writing pro-PRC articles? Good for you, might be your reputation for living in HK for years. I get nothing, exposing PRC to be the communist Nazi regime it is.



Then, why:
1. snipe my posts
2. all 50 centres who sign-up know you
3. even after being ignored, you still troll me and my posts
4. you cannot agree with me on democracy Vs authoritarian regimes

There must be some streak of extreme something in you, that makes you what you are. Extreme-left? Communist? I don't know, I won't make a guess, your posts make it perfectly clear. Time for you to find out who you are, which direction you're headed. Time for some self-introspection.

WTF ??

I’ve been paid throughout my adult life to write articles.
Wall St Journal, New York Times, Far Eastern Economic Review, etc,
I have never been paid to write an article by any government.
Stop making up lies about me!
!

[Oracle]

WTF ??

I’ve been paid throughout my adult life to write articles.
Wall St Journal, New York Times, Far Eastern Economic Review, etc,
I have never been paid to write an article by any government.
Stop making up lies about me!
!

You're going nowhere playing the victim card. You're making up lies and you have lied about me and DE earlier too. Not the first time you LIED.

You yourself said this -

So, you imply that I am paid to write pro-China articles?

Oh, and self-introspection.

[Double Edge]

She's getting around

Use the close captions to understand better what she is saying

Palki's playing devils advocate and challenging her which the previous channels she was on did not even try.

[Double Edge]

Koreana takes a shot at explaining Dr. Li's report

[Double Edge]

If she's lying why have the CCP just arrested her mother in China ?

Second report's out

She was on CNN-News18 earlier, here she is on NDTV

Anchor concludes by saying paper isn't peer reviewed and is dismissed by the scientific community (!)

She's had a gentler reception on the western channels.

[Double Edge]

If you lose contact with me, please tell people i won't commit suicide.

This interview on London Real goes more in depth to how it all started for her.

On the question of non peer review she said the process can take months or even years. This was an urgent situation hence she went with open publishing. Now every one can be the peer review.

There is no acceptance of lab origin papers in the established journals. It came from nature. Period.

The channel is on youtube but for some reason this particular video dated Sept 25 does not appear in their video list.

London Real has their own website and the original source is here, in case this video disappears from youtube.

[Double Edge]

She's back on Luther's show but those people won't enable CC so the rest of the world can follow

Translating the viewer comments is easy enough. In Chrome on a PC, right click (Translate into English)

Over a thousand comments and i can't find a single critical or negative one. There was more scepticism in the NDTV viewer comments.

Dr. Yan is right: Today's scientific community is very corrupt. Scientists only care about their fames, fundings, papers, networks...

Hmm..

[Double Edge]

Facebook is in hot water these days for more reasons than one

[Oracle]

After blaming US and India, China claims COVID-19 originated in Australia

[Double Edge]

Just 14 countries have an issue with the WHO recent report on the origins of C19

Was it so hard for India to join in

Can't count on the Indian opposition here because their leader went and signed a frickin secret MOU with China !!!

Kiwis got some stick for staying out.

Joint Statement on the WHO-Convened COVID-19 Origins Study | DFAT. Au

The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom.

Begin Text:

The Governments of Australia, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America remain steadfast in our commitment to working with the World Health Organization (WHO), international experts who have a vital mission, and the global community to understand the origins of this pandemic in order to improve our collective global health security and response. Together, we support a transparent and independent analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence, of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, we join in expressing shared concerns regarding the recent WHO-convened study in China, while at the same time reinforcing the importance of working together toward the development and use of a swift, effective, transparent, science-based, and independent process for international evaluations of such outbreaks of unknown origin in the future.

The mission of the WHO is critical to advancing global health and health security, and we fully support its experts and staff and recognize their tireless work to bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, including understanding how the pandemic started and spread. With such an important mandate, it is equally essential that we voice our shared concerns that the international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples. Scientific missions like these should be able to do their work under conditions that produce independent and objective recommendations and findings. We share these concerns not only for the benefit of learning all we can about the origins of this pandemic, but also to lay a pathway to a timely, transparent, evidence-based process for the next phase of this study as well as for the next health crises.

We note the findings and recommendations, including the need for further studies of animals to find the means of introduction into humans, and urge momentum for expert-driven phase 2 studies. Going forward, there must now be a renewed commitment by WHO and all Member States to access, transparency, and timeliness. In a serious outbreak of an unknown pathogen with pandemic potential, a rapid, independent, expert-led, and unimpeded evaluation of the origins is critical to better prepare our people, our public health institutions, our industries, and our governments to respond successfully to such an outbreak and prevent future pandemics. It is critical for independent experts to have full access to all pertinent human, animal, and environmental data, research, and personnel involved in the early stages of the outbreak relevant to determining how this pandemic emerged. With all data in hand, the international community may independently assess COVID-19 origins, learn valuable lessons from this pandemic, and prevent future devastating consequences from outbreaks of disease.

We underscore the need for a robust, comprehensive, and expert-led mechanism for expeditiously investigating outbreaks of unknown origin that is conducted with full and open collaboration among all stakeholders and in accordance with the principles of transparency, respect for privacy, and scientific and research integrity. We will work collaboratively and with the WHO to strengthen capacity, improve global health security, and inspire public confidence and trust in the world’s ability to detect, prepare for, and respond to future outbreaks.

End Text.

Good one Aussies, you stood up for the world. It only takes one

[Double Edge]

Let's see what comes out of this

Congress is finally investigating the lab accident covid-19 origin theory | WAPO (op-ed) | May 07 2021

Opinion by Josh Rogin Columnist
May 7, 2021 at 4:24 a.m. GMT+5:30

More than one year after the outbreak of covid-19 in Wuhan, China, the virus’s origin remains a mystery, imperiling chances of preventing the next pandemic. Now, several members of Congress are responding to Chinese government obfuscation, World Health Organization incompetence and Biden administration neglect by moving to launch their own investigations. And these lawmakers insist on exploring the theory that the outbreak might be connected to an accident at a Wuhan lab.

For a variety of reasons, no credible investigation into the origins of the coronavirus that continues to plague the world has taken place. Beijing has spent more than a year covering up the origin and punishing any country that dares call for an independent investigation. Chinese authorities undermined the WHO investigation so thoroughly that even WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted that its team did not properly investigate the possibility of a lab accident origin and that more work needed to be done.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that “we need to get to the bottom of this,” and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has testified that the U.S. government is investigating both the natural spillover and lab accident theories. But the Biden administration reportedly isn’t really pushing for a genuine investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was conducting risky experiments through what is known as “gain of function” research on bat coronaviruses that infect humans.

Now, several Republican lawmakers are starting investigations of their own. Their focus is on demanding that U.S. government agencies tell the American people what they know.


“Understanding the cause of this pandemic — and ensuring that something like it never happens again — is the most important question facing the world today,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) wrote in a letter Wednesday to Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “Given the stakes, we cannot afford to settle for a limited, blinkered, or politicized understanding of the origin of this terrible disease.”

NIAID and its parent organization, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), fund much of the collaborative work between U.S. scientists and the Wuhan lab, including extensive work on bat coronaviruses. The letter asks Fauci, who has repeatedly thrown cold water on the lab accident theory, to hand over all available information on U.S. government funding and support for the Wuhan lab, especially relating to gain of function research.

The Republican leader of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and two other leading Republicans, wrote to Blinken on Thursday, requesting that he release all documents related to factual claims that the Trump administration State Department made in a Jan. 15 statement — including an assertion that the Wuhan lab was concealing its work with the Chinese military and that several researchers came down with covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019. The Biden administration confirmed these claims — but the Wuhan scientists deny them. That means that one side is lying.

“We hope your statement about getting to the bottom of the origins of this pandemic includes looking at all possible causes, including the possibility of an accidental leak from a laboratory,” the letter states.

Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee wrote in March to NIH Director Francis Collins, as well as in April to EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak, the closest collaborator and the fiercest defender of the Wuhan lab, demanding extensive records about their research and collaborations. Collins, Fauci and Daszak have not responded to congressional inquiries nor to my requests for comment.

The Republicans are taking the first steps in a long-overdue effort. Their requests for information require no permission from the Chinese government or the WHO. The State Department, the NIH, NIAID and EcoHealth Alliance should have no reason — and no excuse — to ignore these valid and important congressional inquiries. But without backing from Democrats, who are conspicuously absent from these efforts, these investigations will struggle.

The fact that the origin issue — and especially the lab accident theory — has become politicized is a tragedy. But now, both parties have a responsibility to put politics aside and work together to press governments in Washington and Beijing to disclose everything they know. The longer the delay, the harder the puzzle becomes to solve.

It is clear that the NIH and other U.S. agencies don’t want to have their activities investigated. But they must work with Congress to determine whether their research may be connected to the outbreak. Also, current plans are to expand worldwide collaboration on risky virus research sixfold, through the $1.2 billion Global Virome Project. Shouldn’t we figure out if this research sparked the pandemic before drastically expanding it?

The Chinese government won’t easily allow more access to the Wuhan lab, but the Biden administration must press it to do so. Meanwhile, the investigation can and must proceed now, here in the United States. It’s in everyone’s interest to keep politics out of it as much as possible, because solving the origin question is an urgent task for the security and public health of the entire world.

[Double Edge]

The PLA thinks the SARS 2003 outbreak was a biological terrorist attack unleashed on China (!)

The lead PLA scientist pushing this line is Xu Dezhong

Chinese military scientists discussed weaponising SARS coronaviruses | Weekend Australian | May 07 2021

• EXCLUSIVESHARRI MARKSON
  INVESTIGATIONS WRITER
  @SharriMarksonJACK HAZLEWOOD
• 11:30PM MAY 7, 2021

Chinese military scientists discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronaviruses five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, outlining their ideas in a document that predicted a third world war would be fought with biological weapons.

The document, written by People’s Liberation Army scientists and senior Chinese public health officials in 2015, was obtained by the US State Department as it conducted an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, The Weekend Australian has confirmed.

The paper describes SARS coronaviruses as heralding a “new era of genetic weapons” and says they can be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed in a way never seen before”.

The revelation features in an upcoming investigative book on the origins of COVID-19, titled What Really Happened In Wuhan, to be published by HarperCollins.

The chairmen of the British and Australian foreign affairs and intelligence committees, Tom Tugendhat and James Paterson, say the document raises major concerns about China’s lack of transparency over the origins of COVID-19.

The Chinese-language paper, titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, outlines China’s progress in the research field of biowarfare.


“Following developments in other scientific fields, there have been major advances in the delivery of biological agents,” it states.

“For example, the new-found ability to freeze-dry micro-organisms has made it possible to store biological agents and aerosolise them during attacks.”

Some of China’s senior public health and military figures are listed among the 18 authors of the document, including the former deputy director of China’s Bureau of Epidemic Prevention, Li Feng. Ten of the authors are scientists and weapons experts affiliated with the Air Force Medical University in Xi’an, ranked “very high-risk” for its level of defence research, including its work on medical and psychological sciences, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Defence Universities Tracker.

The Air Force Medical University, also known as the Fourth Medical University, was placed under the command of the PLA under President Xi Jinping’s military reforms in 2017. The editor-in-chief of the paper, Xu Dezhong, reported to the top leadership of the Chinese Military Commission and Ministry of Health during the SARS epidemic of 2003, briefing them 24 times and preparing three reports, according to his online biography.

He also held the position of professor and doctoral supervisor in the Air Force Medical University’s Military Epidemiology Department.

Other authors include Zhang Jiangxia and Zhao Ningning, who both served as experiment scientists in the same department.

Intelligence agencies suspect COVID-19 may be the result of an inadvertent leak from a Wuhan laboratory, a line of inquiry under active investigation since early 2020. There is no evidence to suggest it was intentionally released.

Robert Potter, a digital forensics specialist who has worked for the US, Australian and Canadian governments, and has previously analysed leaked Chinese government documents, verified the authenticity of the paper.

“We were able to verify its authenticity as a document authored by the particular PLA researchers and scientists stated,” Mr Potter, the co-chief executive of Internet 2.0, said. “We were able to locate its genesis on the Chinese internet.”

There is concern about the high-risk nature of the biological research into coronaviruses Wuhan scientists were conducting, particularly involving “Gain of Function” research where virologists create new viruses that are more transmissible and more lethal. Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings said under Mr Xi’s increasing emphasis on civil-military fusion, China’s biological research into coronaviruses could be weaponised.

“There is no clear distinction for research capability because whether it’s used offensively or defensively is not a decision these scientists would take,” he said.

“If you are building skills ostensibly to protect your military from a biological attack, you’re at the same time giving your military a capacity to use these weapons offensively. You can’t separate the two.”

The document offers an insight into the way senior scientists at one of the PLA’s most prominent military universities were thinking about biological research development.

It notes how a sudden surge of patients requiring hospitalisation during a bioweapon attack “could cause the enemy’s medical system to collapse”.

The document refers to the research of Michael J. Ainscough, a former US Air Force colonel, on modes of conflict and bioweapons.

That research explains “next-generation bioweapons” as part of a US Air Force program aimed at better preparing American national security policymakers and senior members of the military to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction.

Drawing on Colonel Ainscough’s research, the authors conclude a third world war “will be biological” and that “the core weapon for victory in World War Three will be bioweapons”.

“Colonel Ainscough’s conclusion states: ‘There are those who say the First World War was chemical, the Second World War was nuclear, and that the Third World War — God forbid — will be biological’,” it reads.

“There are two meanings to this: Firstly, the First and Second World Wars were chemical and nuclear wars respectively; and the Third World War will certainly be a biological war.

“Secondly, advanced weapons are the key factor in determining the fate of World War III. Colonel Ainscough probably believed that the two atomic bombs forced Japan to surrender, laying the foundation for victory in World War II; so, the core weapon for victory in World War III will be bioweapons”.

The study also examines the optimum conditions under which to release a bioweapon. “Bioweapon attacks are best conducted during dawn, dusk, night or cloudy weather because intense sunlight can damage the pathogens,” it states. “Biological agents should be released during dry weather. Rain or snow can cause the aerosol particles to precipitate.

“A stable wind direction is desirable so that the aerosol can float into the target area.”

Among the most bizarre claims by the military scientists is their theory that SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the SARS epidemic of 2003, was a man-made bioweapon, deliberately unleashed on China by “terrorists”.

Scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-1 was of natural origin, having crossed the xenographic barrier from Asian palm civets to humans, likely through the sale of wild animals in wet markets in Guangdong province, southern China. The 263-page paper was published in 2015 by the Chinese Military Medical Science Press, a Chinese government-owned publishing house managed by the General Logistics Department of the PLA.

The Weekend Australian has confirmed the paper was then obtained by senior officials at the US State Department in May 2020, who were investigating the origins of the pandemic.

Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and his chief China adviser, Miles Yu, made a passing reference to it in their Wall Street Journal op-ed in February on China’s laboratories, writing: “A 2015 PLA study treated the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak as a ‘contemporary genetic weapon’ launched by foreign forces.”

After this, the paper circulated among Chinese dissident communities online.

Luke de Pulford, the co-ordinator of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, also received the document and said that while many Chinese papers came across his desk, this one “stuck out”. “If this piece of work is representative of the scientific thinking of those who have advised the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, then there are very serious questions which need urgent answers,” he said.

Mr Tugendhat said: “China’s evident interest in bioweapons is extremely concerning.

“Even under the tightest controls these weapons are dangerous. This document raises major concerns about the ambitions of some of those who advise the top party leadership.”

Senator Paterson said “these revelations demonstrate exactly why nothing less than complete transparency from the Chinese Communist Party is required about the origins of COVID-19”.

“The Chinese government’s failure to fully co-operate with the WHO investigation does nothing to instil confidence in what we have been told so far,” he said.

“Only they can dispel speculation about alternative theories of the cause of this pandemic.”

World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has previously said there needs to be further investigation into the possibility of a lab accident in Wuhan, criticising his own team’s inquiry — that claimed a lab leak was unlikely — for not being thorough or extensive.

“Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy,” Dr Tedros said on March 31.

“The team also visited several laboratories in Wuhan and considered the possibility that the virus entered the human population as a result of a laboratory incident.

“However, I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough. Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions.”

In 2020, the US State Department produced its annual report on arms control agreements which noted: “China continues to develop its biotechnology infrastructure and pursue scientific co-operation with countries of concern.

“The United States has compliance concerns with respect to Chinese military medical institutions’ toxin research and development because of the potential dual-use applications and their potential as a biological threat.”

Citing a past US government treaty compliance report, the Arms Control Association, an NGO promoting public understanding of, and support for, effective arms control policies, reported that China, along with North Korea, Iran and Syria, had “flagrantly violated” the convention: “The convention has been flagrantly violated in the past … the US government listed, in addition to Russia, (Biological Weapons Convention) states-parties China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as BWC signatory Syria, as possessing offensive biological weapons in violation of the treaty.”

Here she is elaborating further

An earlier interview in Feb this year with a couple of members willing to reveal themselves from the group Sharri collaborated with called drastic