The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has extraordinary control over vast aspects of Chinese society, which begs the question if the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was excluded from big brother’s all seeing eyes.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Feith, who investigated the lab leak scandal, said on Wednesday that governments, educational institutions, and companies can’t be sure that they aren’t unknowingly working with the CCP’s military if they’re doing science and technology exchange in China.
Feith’s opinion is not the only one in Washington, DC. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s boss, Dr. Francis Collins, gave his perspective on the links between the CCP and the Wuhan lab in an interview June 2.
“I think you’re demonizing the Wuhan Institute of Virology as it is pure and simple an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said in response to an interviewer’s conjecture that the CCP has great influence over Chinese labs.
But Dr. Collins’ opinion of the CCP is contradicted by what the national security apparatus suggests about the United States’ greatest foe.
When former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked in March if he could say the U.S. believed the Chinese military was involved with research at the Wuhan Lab, Pompeo replied, “That’s correct, and it is a high-confidence assessment that that’s the case.”
Pompeo’s belief about the involvement of CCP’s military, dubbed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), appears grounded in what China reportedly prioritizes. Japan Forward wrote May 5 about the CCP’s military focus on biology:
Since 2016, China’s Central Military Commission has been funding projects on military brain science, advanced bio-mimetic systems (that mimic biological systems), biological and bio-mimetic materials, and new-age biotechnology. Senior PLA officers argue that modern biotechnological development is gradually showing strong signs characteristic of an offensive capability, including the possibility of employing “specific ethnic genetic attacks”
And the CCP’s militarization of science is backed up in a State Department fact sheet released January 2021:
Secrecy and non-disclosure are standard practice for Beijing. For many years the United States has publicly raised concerns about China’s past biological weapons work, which Beijing has neither documented nor demonstrably eliminated, despite its clear obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.
Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.
The Counsel on Foreign Relations has also stated the “CCP has sought to further embed itself across layers of Chinese society and the economy.”
“Xi has done so by silencing dissent; restricting religious groups, media organizations, human rights activists, and lawyers;” the Counsel explains. China’s track record also includes instituting a program in 2013 to promote scientific “outstanding talent” to achieve “overall innovation capacity.”
So it appeared unsurprising when the leader of the CCP spoke to scientists in 2020 after the pandemic was launched. We are told via a CCP press release that politician Xi was “instructive” in his speech on scientific development:
Scientists said Xi Jinping’s speech on China’s scientific development on Friday was deeply insightful, inspiring, and instructive. The Chinese scientific community will strive to push the development of basic sciences, train quality talents, and create original breakthroughs and innovations to meet the nation’s needs.
On Friday, Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, told scientists at a symposium that China should deepen reforms to unleash the full potential of technological innovation.
Yet, Dr. Collins remains confident there is a degree of separation between scientists and the ruling political party.
Dr. Collins explained why in the interview:
And many of those folks [scientists] have had long-term relationships with others in other countries, including the United States, with a lot of respect, a lot of shared information. I don’t think we should just basically say well, because they’re in that country, they’re evil. I think you’re going too far with that one.
Whatever the connection between scientists and the CCP, the State Department’s fact sheet says the CCP has “systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin, choosing instead to devote enormous resources to deceit and disinformation.”
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Breitbart News 2021-06-06 23:17:00
