In an interview with CNN last Sunday (March 28), Secretary of State Blinken criticized China for interfering with the WHO experts’ investigation of the outbreak, while seeming to suggest that the Biden administration is unlikely to punish Beijing over responsibility for the outbreak. Blinken simply emphasized that the U.S. is most concerned and more important to be prepared for a global plague in the future. Has the Biden Administration softened its stance on investigating and pursuing responsibility for the source of the outbreak compared to the Trump administration? This has drawn international attention and questions from U.S. political figures.
According to Fox News, senior U.S. House Republican Rep. Jim Banks sent a letter to Secretary of State John Blinken on Tuesday evening asking why Blinken has not “committed to punishing China for what it did in the outbreak?” Banks urged Blinken to seek damages from Beijing and to refer the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The hard-line Banks has previously suggested that Beijing’s compensation could take a variety of forms, including forcing Beijing to forgive some or all of the U.S. government’s debt to the U.S. Treasury, imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, and requiring Chinese investment out of the U.S. state retirement pension fund.
In his letter to Blinken, Banks wrote: “The burden and cost to Americans, which China, because of its role in the Epidemic, must pay for (the losses).” He explained, “Preventing another epidemic is a goal we all share, but if China continues to lie to the world and exacerbate the severity of the epidemic, for which we are only lightly blamed, it will only make it more difficult to reach the goal (of preventing the next epidemic).” Banks also pressed Blinken that the U.S. would impose sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party to punish it for “expanding the outbreak” and “spreading rumors about the outbreak. Banks also noted that as of Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry was still “dumping blame” on the U.S. in an attempt to pin the origin of the virus on the U.S. In response to a question about the origin of the virus, Chinese diplomat Zhao Lijian asked rhetorically, “When were WHO experts invited to the United States to conduct a traceability study?”
Banks’ letter came after the World health Organization (WHO) released an investigative report that implied the virus began with animal transmission and concluded that a laboratory leak was highly unlikely. The international community has questioned the credibility of the report, with fourteen countries, including the United States, issuing statements that collectively question the report. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said there should be a second phase of action by independent international experts to investigate further. For his part, WHO Secretary General Desai Tan, in a surprise public statement on March 29, the day before the official release of the WHO report, has claimed that “all hypotheses are on the table … and deserve further and complete study.”
At least 560,000 people have died and more than 31 million have been infected in the U.S. since the New crown outbreak began. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted Tuesday that the report released by the WHO is a continuation of the Chinese Communist Party’s hoax with the WHO disinformation campaign. “This is why I advocate that we withdraw from the WHO.” Pompeo condemned WHO Director-General Tan Desai for helping China cover up the outbreak, saying, “Tan conspired with Xi (Jinping) to conceal human-to-human information at a critical Time. The Wuhan Institute for Virus Research (WIV) remains the most likely source of the virus.”
Pompeo released the U.S. fact-checking materials on the development of the New coronavirus outbreak on the eve of his departure as secretary of state, stating that several researchers within the Wuhan Institute for Virus Research became ill in the fall of 2019, before the first cases were confirmed. These researchers had symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.
The idea that the new coronavirus was suspected to have been leaked from the Wuhan virus laboratory was once labeled a “conspiracy theory” and anyone who posted a video about it on Facebook or YouTube was deleted or even pinned. This may be related to the US mainstream media’s strategy of focusing on Trump during the presidential election and putting the blame for the outbreak squarely on him. After Biden’s inauguration as U.S. president, the lab leak theory has been increasingly corroborated and is no longer a conspiracy theory. The “certainty” that the virus was transmitted from animals to humans has also been refuted by some virologists.
Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told CNN on March 26 that he believes the virus was leaked from the Wuhan lab, but that the leak was not necessarily intentional. As a virologist, Redfield questioned the notion that the virus was passed from animal to human, saying it doesn’t make biological sense that the virus was passed from animal to human and could spread so well from human to human. “My view is that I still think the most likely cause of this disease in Wuhan is the escape (of the virus) from the laboratory.” Redfield further elaborated, “Others don’t believe that. That’s OK. Science will eventually figure that out.” “That’s my opinion, but I’m a virologist, and I’ve been dealing with virology my whole Life.”
In addition to CNN, the U.S. Newsweek (NEWS WEEK) also published a long article lambasting experts involved in the WHO investigation, such as Dasak, saying: they keep spreading: is a variety of animal trafficking or frozen Food transmission theory, but ignore the biggest virus carriers – the researchers of the WuXi Institute.
The latest reports show: the European Union has similarly expressed concern about the WHO expert report, noting that while the report is a useful first step, it regrets the late start of the study and the limited early samples and data, and calls on WHO to continue the study. And Tandse, in a sudden change of position, also agreed and echoed the views of Western countries, saying that the expert group did not conduct a broad enough assessment and that more data and research are still needed to reach stronger conclusions. Tandse said that although the panel determined that the laboratory leak of the virus is the least likely hypothesis, but for this point still need to carry out more investigations, willing to send additional working groups and experts to, WHO will be timely to announce the progress of the next phase of the investigation.
Is U.S. Secretary of State Blinken implying that Beijing will not be punished? Or was it rhetoric that advised Beijing to open up the investigation to experts? The Biden administration has been ambiguous on this sensitive issue. In fact, there is both a connection and a different meaning between recrimination and punishment. Hopefully, the speculative suspicions of public opinion will be further confirmed.
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