On the first anniversary of the closure of Wuhan, triggered by the rapid spread of pneumonia of unknown origin, a WHO team of experts arrived in Wuhan to investigate the source of the new coronavirus. The international investigation, which came late after a series of twists and turns, brought the much-criticized response of the Chinese authorities and WHO at the beginning of the outbreak and the complex and delicate relationship between WHO and Beijing back into the spotlight of world public opinion.
The source of the COVID-19 virus and the early response at the beginning of the outbreak have been the focus of international attention after the pandemic caused a serious public health disaster in more than 100 countries around the world. The United States, Australia and other countries have been asking WHO to send experts to the field to investigate the origin of the new coronavirus, and the United States has offered to send epidemiologists and virus experts to China to assist in the investigation, but Beijing has refused and delayed for various reasons.
It has been more than a year since the outbreak of Wuhan pneumonia, and the number of reported cases of New Coronavirus worldwide is approaching the 100 million mark, with more than two million deaths, of which the United States has suffered the most, with more than 25 million confirmed cases and more than 420,000 deaths, and the Epidemic has had a huge impact and far-reaching effects on many aspects of American politics, economics, and society. Because of this, U.S. officials and civilians are extremely concerned about the origins of the epidemic and the reasons why it is out of control.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
In an interview the day before he left office, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was not sure if the new coronavirus pandemic began with an accidental leak at a laboratory in Wuhan, but that the possibility exists and that all evidence so far points to the origin of the New coronavirus outbreak in China.
Last Friday, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned in a statement that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research developed symptoms consistent with neo-coronavirus pneumonia and seasonal disease in the fall of 2019, before the first confirmed case.
Pompeo said the new message calls into question the credibility of Wuhan Virus Institute senior researcher Shi Zhengli, who has publicly stated that the institute’s staff and students have had “zero infections” from the virus in question.
Pompeo also said the new information shows that researchers at the institute began studying a coronavirus carried by bats back in 2016. The institute claimed in January 2020 that that virus was 96.2 percent similar to the new coronavirus causing the current global pandemic.
Pompeo also cited the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research’s collaboration with the Chinese military on publications and classified projects, among other things, saying the institute has been doing classified research for the military since 2017, including animal experiments.
Pompeo urged WHO investigators to demand an explanation from Chinese authorities on the above issues.
International investigation in the spotlight
A member of the WHO panel said he expects the trip to yield details and new information on the source of the virus, but does not expect to get answers to all questions.
Chinese authorities have characterized the WHO panel’s trip to China as a “study tour” to conduct joint “scientific cooperation” with Chinese scientists on the traceability of the new coronavirus.
On January 14, the WHO investigation team arrived in Wuhan to begin a 14-day quarantine, and spent the anniversary of Wuhan’s closure on January 23 in isolation.
Zhang Hai, a resident of Wuhan who works in Shenzhen, has been holding the Wuhan and Hubei governments accountable since last spring for what he believes was a cover-up by local authorities that led to the death of his father. Zhang told VOA that families of victims of the Wuhan underreporting are watching the WHO investigation team and urged its members to resist the temptation to do a good job in good conscience.
Tu Shengzhe, former director of the Health Department of Taiwan‘s Executive Yuan and chairman of the Biotechnology Development Center, told VOA that he fears the WHO investigation will help the Chinese Communist Party cover up the truth, and that much of the evidence has been destroyed after more than a year. Why else would they give people access to it only after a year? And they’re dragging their feet and postponing it. Obviously there are ghosts inside.”
Tan Desai’s close cooperation with Beijing raises questions
On Jan. 28, 2020, Communist Party leader Xi Jinping told Tan Desai in Beijing that he had personally directed and deployed China’s anti-epidemic efforts. But there were no reports mentioning that Tan Desai did not appear to have pursued why the plague, which Chinese officials said earlier had no evidence of human-to-human transmission, developed within days to the point where Wuhan closed the city and Hubei closed the province, and the plague struck most provinces across China.
Dr. Liu Sixin, a doctor of law, returned to his hometown of Xiangyang, Hubei, before Wuhan was closed. Liu told the Voice of America that the media’s coverage on New Year’s Day of eight Wuhan residents who released false information about the epidemic caused many Chinese people to ignore the damage caused by Wuhan pneumonia, and that he was in Xiangyang on January 22 to get a haircut. By then, the virus had already spread from Wuhan to many parts of China and the world.
Doctors had no better means than to close the city and cut off (traffic),” he said. You, Tandusai WHO, said there was no need for a travel ban. At that Time, many people flowed out of Wuhan, not only to other cities on the mainland, there were many people flying to other countries. Mainly Chinese, but also a small number of foreigners in Wuhan. Some of these people must have been infected inside.”
On Jan. 31, 2020, then-President Donald Trump ordered a halt to travel from China to the U.S., and WHO Director-General Desmond Tan delayed declaring a global pandemic until March 11. At the time, the new coronavirus had already spread to more than 100 countries, but despite this, the WHO was recommending that countries follow China’s “remarkable achievement” to contain the outbreak. At the same time, Chinese official media reports touted that “the independence of the WHO should not be questioned.
At a meeting of the WHO Executive Board in Geneva in early February 2020, Tandezai reiterated his opposition to the travel ban and said that China was doing a great job of protecting the world from the virus and that “the chances of getting sick anywhere outside of China are very low.
In their correspondence on March 17 and 26, Tandezai and Xi expressed high appreciation for each other’s leadership in the fight against the epidemic. The former was dubbed by many Chinese netizens as “Political Commissar Tan” or “Secretary Tan” for his admiration and close following of Beijing’s propaganda on the epidemic.
On April 15, Claudia Rosett, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, published an article criticizing Tan and her team, accusing them of whitewashing Beijing’s lies, denials and propaganda under the WHO banner. The article argues that the Trump Administration was right to decide to suspend funding while it considers the WHO’s role in gross mismanagement and cover-up of the outbreak. “Asking the WHO to clean up its poor and misleading behavior and stop kowtowing to China is doing an important service not only for the United States, but for the world.”
The article argues that the WHO’s three-paragraph statement about the outbreak (“no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission,” “recommending against imposing any restrictions on international shipments,” and “China should be thanked and respected”) misleads the world and is damaging on a scale that would cause a global epidemic.
The U.S. embassy and consulate in China website reprinted the article by Rosset in its entirety. The article is titled: “Time to Investigate the World Health Organization’s Catastrophic Public Failure and Internal Corruption.”
Hong Kong media comment on Tandusai’s ties to Beijing
On April 16, Hong Kong’s Apple Daily cited an analysis by current affairs commentator Liu Ruishao as saying that “China’s “money diplomacy” in exchange for helping Tan Desai to join the WHO is also traceable.” The analysis said that “if China, like the United States, were to take on the WHO budget or donate a large amount of reserves directly to the WHO, the money would go into the WHO treasury and not into the pockets of small countries, so China might as well give the money directly to small countries to promote bilateral relations.” This report says that the reason why Tan Desai favors the Chinese Communist Party all started when (former Hong Kong health chief and former WHO director general) Margaret Chan came to power.
Apple Daily reported that Lu Pingquan, a senior lecturer in journalism at Baptist University who is familiar with China’s political situation, pointed out that then Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had adopted Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy of “hiding light and keeping obscurity”, which is not comparable to Xi Jinping’s current “bright sword diplomacy” and “War Wolf diplomacy”.
WHO internal alleges Beijing failed to provide sufficient information
On June 1, the Associated Press reported that internal WHO recordings showed that officials publicly praised and flattered Beijing authorities early in the outbreak in an effort to extract more information about the outbreak, complaining at a Jan. 6 meeting that China had not shared enough data to assess the human-to-human spread of the virus and the risk it posed to the rest of the world.
Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly boasted about his leadership of the outbreak response to foreign dignitaries. In a phone call with then-U.S. President Donald Trump on March 17 last year, Xi emphasized that “since the outbreak of the new pneumonia epidemic, China has always acted in an open, transparent and responsible manner, promptly informing WHO and relevant countries, including the United States, of the epidemic, including the first release of information such as the genetic sequence of the virus, and unreservedly sharing with all parties its experience in prevention, control and treatment. We will share our experience in prevention, control and treatment with all parties, and do our best to provide support and assistance to countries in need.”
Assessment report: stronger response should have been made at the beginning of the outbreak
Official media outlet Global Times censored the headline “Wuhan pneumonia” in its English edition (screenshot)
On January 18, 2021, an independent expert assessment team commissioned by the WHO published an investigative report criticizing China and the WHO for their inadequate response to the outbreak. The independent expert panel, which investigated the prevention and response to the new pandemic, said that its assessment of the initial crisis in China “suggests that it would have been possible to act more quickly on the symptoms of the epidemic”. In its second report to the WHO Executive Board, the panel said immediate containment measures should have been taken in all countries where transmission was possible.
The panel said it was clear that “local and national health authorities in China (last) January should have taken stronger public health measures.”
The report also criticized the World Health Organization for dragging its feet at the start of the crisis, noting that the U.N. health agency did not convene an emergency committee until Jan. 22, 2020. And the committee failed to agree to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the highest level of alert. It was not until a week later, on Jan. 30, that the committee agreed to do so.
The independent panel, co-chaired by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Republic of Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, included 11 experts from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Mexico, India, Colombia and China. China is represented by epidemic prevention expert Zhong Nanshan.
The mission of this independent panel of experts is to investigate the handling of the global New crown outbreak and to push the World Health Organization for reform.
China reacts strongly to international skepticism
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying defended the report this month in response to questions from Japanese reporters about it, citing Chinese epidemic prevention experts who insisted that China’s early handling of the outbreak bought time to fight the epidemic. She said, “As the first country to raise the global alarm against the epidemic, China, in the face of a new virus unknown to mankind before, even when information was not comprehensive at the time, made decisive decisions and insisted on early detection, early reporting, early isolation and early treatment, which won time for the fight against the epidemic and reduced infections and deaths. Such an achievement has been recognized by scientists and medical experts from all countries in the world.”
Right now, people in some parts of northeastern and northern China are facing a new wave of backlash from the epidemic, with the reappearance of city closures, road closures, door closures and other coercive measures with Chinese characteristics.
Liu Sixin, a Hubei-born lawmaker, points out that it would be difficult to copy the epidemic control models of centralized, authoritarian China and the liberal, democratic and human rights-obsessed European and American countries from each other. He believes that the successful experience of government-led and people-led prevention in Taiwan and Japan is worthy of emulation by all countries.
On the relationship between WHO and China and the traceability of the new coronavirus, Hua Chunying said, “China will continue to support WHO in its key leadership role. We will also continue to communicate and cooperate closely with WHO. We call on other countries to also give firm support and necessary assistance to WHO’s related work. At the same time, we firmly oppose the politicization of issues related to traceability, as this will not help the international community to unite against the epidemic.”
Tu Shengzhe: WHO must be overhauled and depoliticized
Talking about the politicization of the epidemic issue, the head of the Taiwan Consortium’s Biotechnology Development Center, Tu Shengzhe, said that the WHO has been interfered with by the Chinese Communist Party for many years, and many departments are held by Chinese officials, and Taiwan has been excluded from the WHO and the World Health Assembly despite the successful experience it has accumulated in the governance of this epidemic prevention, which is typical of the politicization of public health issues, which is against humanity and harmful to the cause of human health.
The political figure from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) pointed out that in light of the new U.S. Biden administration’s return to the WHO, he called for the UN body to undergo vigorous reform and restructuring, to admit Taiwan as a member or observer, and to avoid future recurrences of such serious failures as the ineffective handling of the new crown pneumonia.
What is the truth about the epidemic?
Just after Pompeo shared intelligence about the Wuhan Virus Institute before he left office, as the WHO panel of experts launched a traceability investigation in Wuhan and public opinion once again turned its attention to the Wuhan Virus Institute and the P4 lab, an article sourced from the official Xinhua website hit the Chinese web with the title, “Hot search exploded! This U.S. Virus Site Can’t Hide Anymore”.
The article, published on Jan. 21, reads, “Fort Detrick, the U.S. virus site named by Hua Chunying, is No. 1 in the hot search! The Chinese Foreign Ministry has called on the U.S. side at least four times to tell the truth about the Fort Detrick site.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has repeatedly questioned the U.S. government about the reasons for the closure of the U.S. military biological base at Fort Detrick. Among the questions posed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson were, “Can the U.S. side open Fort Detrick and the more than 200 U.S. biological laboratories overseas to WHO investigations? Can the U.S. side be open and transparent on this issue? Give an explanation to the American people and the people of the world?”
The Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily also echoed the sentiment, questioning the relationship between the closure of the U.S. military bio-base and the New Crown outbreak, and “Can the WHO or an international team of experts be invited to the U.S. to investigate the origin of the outbreak?”
In response, Internet vlogger Fang Zhouzi, known for his science and technology counterfeiting, tweeted, “People’s Daily and War Wolf Diplomat are really stupid.”
The tweet said, “The international academic community recognizes that the New Coronavirus is not man-made, and they want to blame it on the U.S., but they want to say it is man-made. If the new coronavirus is man-made, it could only be made in a Chinese lab because current technology can only modify existing viruses, and the bat coronavirus, which is most similar to the new coronavirus, was found in China.”
Fang argued that “the war wolves are ruining China’s reputation while trying to get a quick laugh.”
Liu Sixin, who closely followed the cause of the new coronavirus outbreak and the early response to Wuhan pneumonia, said it was normal for people to have all kinds of reasonable doubts, including those about the P4 laboratory, in an open society before the investigation was concluded.
On Jan. 9, just before the WHO panel departed, British journalist Johnson Bucks of the Sunday Mail reported that hundreds of pages of information related to research done at the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virus Research had been deleted. The report noted that details of more than 300 studies published on the state-run National Science Foundation of China’s website no longer exist, including many studies of animal infections in humans.
Zhang Hai, an epidemic chaser in Wuhan, expressed fears that WHO experts would be constrained or end up with no success in order to cater to official propaganda, so much so that the families of victims defending their rights to pursue the disease would be charged by authorities with settling scores in the fall.
On April 19 last year, Chen Mei, Cai Wei and other 90-year-old volunteers from Beijing’s DuanDuXing website were arrested for recording sensitive information about the epidemic that was deleted from the Internet and are still being held. Earlier, Wuhan Writer Fang Fang was attacked and abused by populists for publishing his “Diary of a Closed City”. Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was recently sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Citizens Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi, who risked their personal safety to film the Wuhan epidemic, have not yet been freed after nearly a year of arrest. Independent media personality and former CCTV host Li Zehua was taken away by police after being followed by an unidentified vehicle on his way to the Wuhan virus clinic in February last year, but was released months later under suspicion of being silenced.
Earlier this week, Voice of America unsuccessfully contacted Zhang Yi, an outspoken Wuhan rights activist who has spoken out about the outbreak. According to other Wuhan residents, Zhang Yi has been traveling for several days and his whereabouts are unknown, with his cell phone switched off. A source familiar with Zhang Yi told VOA that Zhang Yi’s travel at this time should be related to the first anniversary of the city’s closure and the entry of WHO experts into Wuhan to investigate.
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