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Epoch Times
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
China's New COVID‑19 Report Exposes CCP's Biggest Fear, Analysts Say
News Analysis Beijing's latest white paper on COVID-19 didn't just rehash propaganda—it took a step further. Analysts say the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resorted to its usual playbook of vitriol and lies, while revealing its biggest fear: being held liable for a pandemic that killed millions and upended the global economy. The 23-page report titled 'Covid‑19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China's Actions and Stance' points to the United States as the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, delivers veiled jabs at the Trump administration, and devotes a whole section refuting a court judgment that China owes the state of Missouri more than $24 billion for concealing pandemic data and hoarding protective equipment. 'If solid evidence ever proves that the virus originated from a state-backed lab in Wuhan, the CCP would be compelled to address many questions regarding its gain-of-function research, motives, the early cover-up, and why it allowed the pathogen to spread overseas,' Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.‑based China affairs analyst with a clinical medicine background, told The Epoch Times. If the CCP acknowledged its failures in handling COVID-19, he said, 'it would mean confessing to a crime against humanity.' Related Stories 5/4/2025 4/25/2025 Beijing issued its white paper on April 30, less than two weeks after the White House launched the Tang views the white paper as a preemptive strike in the larger U.S.–China tariff dispute. U.S. and Chinese trade officials held negotiations in Geneva on May 10–11, resulting in a 90-day trade truce in which both sides rolled back massive tariffs, providing time for further talks. 'Beijing assumes Washington might use the virus origin probe as a bargaining chip,' he said. 'To neutralize that card, it moved early to muddy the waters.' He compares the tactic to how Beijing manages the export of fentanyl precursors—deliberately creating a U.S. national security crisis that could later be leveraged for concessions. Sean Lin, a former U.S. Army microbiologist, describes the report as a classic example of the CCP's cognitive warfare—strategies aimed at obscuring the truth, shifting blame to Washington, and avoiding accountability. US Origin Claim In the white paper, the CCP revives an unfounded theory that the virus leaked from a U.S. Army laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, according to Lin, also a former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. It points to the temporary shutdown of Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory in 2019, linking it to unexplained pneumonia cases in nearby Virginia and a national surge of severe respiratory illness that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Personnel work inside the biosafety level 4 lab at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., on Sept. 26, 2002. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images The facility, home to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, closed briefly in 2019 following inspections by the CDC. The lab reported that the shutdown order was issued because of ongoing infrastructure problems with wastewater decontamination. The CDC did not disclose the reason for the shutdown, citing national security concerns. Beijing's white paper also cites a study, published in the 'Clinical Infectious Diseases' journal in November 2020, that found SARS‑CoV‑2‑positive antibodies in Red Cross blood samples collected in nine U.S. states between Dec. 13, 2019, and Jan. 17, 2020, claiming that the virus was circulating in the United States as early as December 2019. Tang calls the maneuver a quintessential CCP tactic: 'offense as defense' and 'accusation in a mirror.' The study's authors, however, Shifting Blame Abroad Tang said that Beijing aims to avoid global scrutiny with its latest white paper by shifting the blame away from Wuhan and transforming the discussion on the virus origins into a geopolitical blame game that it believes it can control. He pointed out that whenever foreign governments question Beijing's transparency, Chinese state media float alternative virus origin stories tailored to those countries. For example, when Italian authorities pressed China for more data on the outbreak, Chinese state media distorted an Italian doctor's remarks to suggest the pandemic began in Italy in November 2019. Chinese state media also promoted research published by international experts and foreign media that claimed that the virus originated in the Netherlands, France, Australia, India, Spain—'anywhere, basically, but Wuhan,' U.S. think tank Jamestown Foundation Leaked CCP documents, obtained by the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times in 2020, suggest that an outbreak likely began in China months earlier than Beijing admits. A Feb. 19, 2020, directive from a central investigative team ordered Wuhan hospitals to comb through records from Oct. 1 to Dec. 10, 2019, looking for unexplained fever cases, COVID‑style lung images, and pneumonia deaths of unknown cause. Security guards patrol outside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market where the coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on Jan. 24, 2020 Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images What US Intelligence Says The website, launched on April 18, cites intelligence findings detailed in a comprehensive December 2024 'By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn't,' the website notes, pointing to genetic anomalies, a single‑source infection pattern, and lax biosafety practices at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It also notes that researchers fell ill with COVID‑like symptoms in fall 2019 before the virus was detected at a wet market in Wuhan. Concealing Data, Suppressing Whistleblowers The white paper maintains that Beijing informed the world in a 'timely, open and transparent manner' and implemented 'science-based and effective containment measures' in handling the outbreak. It also claims that China promptly shared all outbreak data with the World Health Organization (WHO) and twice hosted its experts in Wuhan, leading to the creation of the 2021 WHO–China report, which deemed a lab leak 'extremely unlikely.' However, Lin pointed out that there are no references to the CCP's information blackout in late 2019 and its silencing of whistleblower doctors. In late December 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, warned colleagues about a SARS-like virus in a private chat group on Weibo, the Chinese version of social media platform X. Three days later, he was summoned by police, interrogated, and forced to sign a letter admitting to 'spreading false rumors.' He died in early February 2020 after contracting the virus, triggering public outcry in China. People attend a vigil to mourn for Dr. Li Wenliang in Hong Kong, on Feb. 7, Ai Fen, director of the hospital's emergency department, was similarly The CCP's white paper doesn't explain why raw patient data and virus samples remain off‑limits to independent investigators, Lin noted. The WHO has been The Missouri Lawsuit In April 2020, the state of Missouri filed a In March, a federal judge While the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act generally shields foreign governments, Missouri's attorney general said the state will seek to collect the judgment by seizing Chinese‑owned farmland and other assets. Labelling the lawsuit as a 'politically motivated farce,' the white paper said Beijing will 'never accede' to compensation demands and vows retaliation if its interests are harmed. The white paper describes Missouri's pandemic response as 'incompetent,' citing the state's high mortality rate, and compares it to China's 'significant contribution' to the global fight against COVID‑19. However, Beijing was criticized by the international community when it restricted exports and aggressively acquired global supplies of masks and other personal protective equipment during the onset of the pandemic. A patient is taken from an ambulance to the emergency room of a hospital in the Navajo Nation town of Tuba City during the 57-hour curfew, imposed to try to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus through the Navajo Nation, in Arizona, on May 24, 2020 Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images Socio-Economic Toll According to the latest data available, between Jan. 5, 2020, and April 26, 2025, the WHO had Independent tallies point to far greater human loss. A March 2022 peer‑reviewed Lancet study The economic damage is just as stark. In January 2021, the International Monetary Fund A 2020 scenario study by University of Cambridge For the United States alone, the USC Schaeffer Institute Lin said the Trump administration's renewed willingness to spotlight the Wuhan lab leak theory marks a turning point. 'The question is no longer where the virus came from,' he said. 'It's what the CCP did—and failed to do—that turned an outbreak into a global catastrophe.' Tang said that more U.S. states—and possibly other nations—could file suits akin to Missouri's, potentially subjecting Beijing to 'crushing legal and moral pressure.' That looming threat, he believes, is already shaping the CCP's messaging: the higher the legal stakes, the harder the regime leans on deflection. Gu Xiaohua, Cheng Mulan, and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
Time of India
06-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Trump orders curb on virus research he blames for Covid pandemic
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Monday ordered new limitations on a form of biological research his administration says caused the Covid-19 pandemic through a lab leak in China. The United States will halt funding in certain countries for so-called "gain-of-function" experiments -- aimed at enhancing the properties of pathogens -- according to an executive order Trump signed Monday at the White House. "There's no laboratory that's immune from leaks -- and this is going to prevent inadvertent leaks from happening in the future and endangering humanity," Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on X. "Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population, as well as the world, as we saw during the COVID pandemic," added Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health. Trump has long championed the theory that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a result of gain-of-function research -- an alternative to the theory that the virus spilled over naturally from wild animals to humans at a seafood market in the same city. The US government website which previously focused on promoting vaccine and testing information, is now devoted to highlighting arguments that favor the lab leak. Several US agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Energy, and, most recently, the Central Intelligence Agency -- which shifted its stance under Trump's second term -- now lean toward a lab origin. Several other intelligence agencies favor natural spillover. During the 2010s, the National Institutes of Health funded bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute via the US-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance -- a grant axed by Trump in 2020 during his first term, but later partially restored under president Joe Biden. Complicating matters, former top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci has maintained that the work in Wuhan did not meet the federal definition of gain-of-function, though some virologists and US officials have disputed that claim. Trump's order names China as an example of a "country of concern" where such research should not be supported. The order also seeks to end funding for other types of life sciences research in countries deemed to lack sufficient oversight, significantly broadening the types of foreign research that could be targeted. It further calls for the development of a strategy to "govern, limit, and track dangerous gain-of-function research across the United States that occurs without federal funding" -- though the extent of the government's control over non-federal research is unclear, and the order also calls for new legislation to fill any gaps. Trump's executive order comes amid broader efforts by his administration to reshape American science and health policy, including mass firings to government scientists and steep slashes to research budgets.
Malay Mail
06-05-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
Trump curbs funding to foreign virus research he blames for Covid-19 pandemic
WASHINGTON, May 6 — US President Donald Trump yesterday ordered new limitations on a form of biological research his administration says caused the Covid-19 pandemic through a lab leak in China. The United States will halt funding in certain countries for so-called 'gain-of-function' experiments — aimed at enhancing the properties of pathogens — according to an executive order Trump signed yesterday at the White House. 'There's no laboratory that's immune from leaks — and this is going to prevent inadvertent leaks from happening in the future and endangering humanity,' Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr wrote on X. 'Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population, as well as the world, as we saw during the Covid pandemic,' added Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health. Trump has long championed the theory that Sars-CoV-2 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a result of gain-of-function research — an alternative to the theory that the virus spilled over naturally from wild animals to humans at a seafood market in the same city. The US government website which previously focused on promoting vaccine and testing information, is now devoted to highlighting arguments that favour the lab leak. Several US agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Energy, and, most recently, the Central Intelligence Agency — which shifted its stance under Trump's second term — now lean toward a lab origin. Several other intelligence agencies favour natural spillover. During the 2010s, the National Institutes of Health funded bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute via the US-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance — a grant axed by Trump in 2020 during his first term, but later partially restored under president Joe Biden. Complicating matters, former top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci has maintained that the work in Wuhan did not meet the federal definition of gain-of-function, though some virologists and US officials have disputed that claim. Trump's order names China as an example of a 'country of concern' where such research should not be supported. The order also seeks to end funding for other types of life sciences research in countries deemed to lack sufficient oversight, significantly broadening the types of foreign research that could be targeted. It further calls for the development of a strategy to 'govern, limit, and track dangerous gain-of-function research across the United States that occurs without federal funding' — though the extent of the government's control over non-federal research is unclear, and the order also calls for new legislation to fill any gaps. Trump's executive order comes amid broader efforts by his administration to reshape American science and health policy, including mass firings to government scientists and steep slashes to research budgets. — AFP
The Sun
06-05-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Trump orders curb on virus research he blames for Covid pandemic
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday ordered new limitations on a form of biological research his administration says caused the Covid-19 pandemic through a lab leak in China. The United States will halt funding in certain countries for so-called 'gain-of-function' experiments -- aimed at enhancing the properties of pathogens -- according to an executive order Trump signed Monday at the White House. 'There's no laboratory that's immune from leaks -- and this is going to prevent inadvertent leaks from happening in the future and endangering humanity,' Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on X. 'Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population, as well as the world, as we saw during the COVID pandemic,' added Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health. Trump has long championed the theory that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a result of gain-of-function research -- an alternative to the theory that the virus spilled over naturally from wild animals to humans at a seafood market in the same city. The US government website which previously focused on promoting vaccine and testing information, is now devoted to highlighting arguments that favor the lab leak. Several US agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Energy, and, most recently, the Central Intelligence Agency -- which shifted its stance under Trump's second term -- now lean toward a lab origin. Several other intelligence agencies favor natural spillover. During the 2010s, the National Institutes of Health funded bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute via the US-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance -- a grant axed by Trump in 2020 during his first term, but later partially restored under president Joe Biden. Complicating matters, former top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci has maintained that the work in Wuhan did not meet the federal definition of gain-of-function, though some virologists and US officials have disputed that claim. Trump's order names China as an example of a 'country of concern' where such research should not be supported. The order also seeks to end funding for other types of life sciences research in countries deemed to lack sufficient oversight, significantly broadening the types of foreign research that could be targeted. It further calls for the development of a strategy to 'govern, limit, and track dangerous gain-of-function research across the United States that occurs without federal funding' -- though the extent of the government's control over non-federal research is unclear, and the order also calls for new legislation to fill any gaps. Trump's executive order comes amid broader efforts by his administration to reshape American science and health policy, including mass firings to government scientists and steep slashes to research budgets.
The Sun
06-05-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Trump Orders Limits on Gain-of-Function Research Abroad
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday ordered new limitations on a form of biological research his administration says caused the Covid-19 pandemic through a lab leak in China. The United States will halt funding in certain countries for so-called 'gain-of-function' experiments -- aimed at enhancing the properties of pathogens -- according to an executive order Trump signed Monday at the White House. 'There's no laboratory that's immune from leaks -- and this is going to prevent inadvertent leaks from happening in the future and endangering humanity,' Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on X. 'Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population, as well as the world, as we saw during the COVID pandemic,' added Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health. Trump has long championed the theory that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a result of gain-of-function research -- an alternative to the theory that the virus spilled over naturally from wild animals to humans at a seafood market in the same city. The US government website which previously focused on promoting vaccine and testing information, is now devoted to highlighting arguments that favor the lab leak. Several US agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Energy, and, most recently, the Central Intelligence Agency -- which shifted its stance under Trump's second term -- now lean toward a lab origin. Several other intelligence agencies favor natural spillover. During the 2010s, the National Institutes of Health funded bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute via the US-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance -- a grant axed by Trump in 2020 during his first term, but later partially restored under president Joe Biden. Complicating matters, former top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci has maintained that the work in Wuhan did not meet the federal definition of gain-of-function, though some virologists and US officials have disputed that claim. Trump's order names China as an example of a 'country of concern' where such research should not be supported. The order also seeks to end funding for other types of life sciences research in countries deemed to lack sufficient oversight, significantly broadening the types of foreign research that could be targeted. It further calls for the development of a strategy to 'govern, limit, and track dangerous gain-of-function research across the United States that occurs without federal funding' -- though the extent of the government's control over non-federal research is unclear, and the order also calls for new legislation to fill any gaps. Trump's executive order comes amid broader efforts by his administration to reshape American science and health policy, including mass firings to government scientists and steep slashes to research budgets.
