Experts had believed that bamboo rats could be one of the sources of the outbreak Analysis: Chinese bamboo rat farming becomes politically sensitive under pressure to trace the outbreak
Since the global outbreak of the Chinese Communist virus (New Coronavirus) epidemic, there has been international pressure on the Chinese Communist Party to trace the source of the epidemic. Pictured is a file photo. (WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images)
Since the global outbreak of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus (New Coronavirus), international pressure has been mounting to trace the outbreak back to the source. Recently, internal documents obtained by the Epoch Times leaked that Guangxi authorities repeatedly blocked foreign media from contacting bamboo rat farmers last year to avoid unfavorable statements against the CCP. Previously, CCP expert Zhong Nanshan had suggested that bamboo rats could be one of the sources of the outbreak.
Under the Communist Party’s high-profile slogan of “comprehensive poverty eradication,” many poor farmers have entered the bamboo rat industry chain. But the Communist Party issued a ban on wild animals early last year, leaving them with no money to spend and no way to complain.
Exclusive: Documents Leak China’s Communist Party Blocked Foreign Media from Contacting Bamboo Rat Farmers
The Epoch Times obtained a December 28, 2020, letter from Guangxi’s Foreign Affairs Office regarding the reporting of propaganda and ideological work in 2020. The document leaks that the office had “adhered to the bottom-line thinking of national security” in 2020 to “respond” to foreign media interviews in Guizhou during the epidemic and “avoid unfavorable negative public opinion.”
How did responding to overseas media interviews become a matter of “adhering to the bottom line thinking of national security”?
The document reveals that in April 2020, the office disposed of a British media organization in China, employing Chinese social workers to interview bamboo rat farmers in Beihai. It also said to “strictly prevent the foreign media from speculating on the special breeding animal farming industry and prevent the foreign media from using the epidemic to discredit prevention and control initiatives and poverty alleviation projects”.
The document also reveals that the office has “guided” Nanning, Wuzhou, Qinzhou, Guigang Foreign Affairs Office, banned three foreign resident journalists to come to cover the incident of special animal breeding households.
(Epoch Times)
According to public information, the bamboo rat is one of the wild animals in southern China, because of its low cost and high income, so bamboo rat breeding was once listed as a “special poverty alleviation industry” in Guangxi, Hunan and Guizhou, and also became a “poverty alleviation project” strongly advocated by the authorities.
However, at the beginning of the epidemic on the mainland, Zhong Nanshan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in an interview with CCTV on the evening of January 20, 2020, that the source of the new coronavirus (CCP virus) was most likely wild animals, such as bamboo rats and badgers.
The Epoch Times has exclusively reported that the CCP’s test report on the Wuhan South China market, where the outbreak first broke out, also showed that authorities tested animals such as bamboo rats.
Current affairs commentator Li Linyi argues that after the global outbreak, the CCP came under international pressure to trace the epidemic back to its source. Under the pressure, the Chinese Communist Party has changed its story again and again. The possible origins of the epidemic from bats and bamboo rats were twisted by the CCP into pangolin, imported from overseas, brought in by the U.S. military, leaked from a U.S. laboratory, and so on. Therefore, the issue of bamboo rat farmers’ foreign media interviews has become a politically sensitive issue, because if it is not done properly, the foreign media will dig up clues from it, making the Chinese Communist Party more embarrassed in the international community.
Some mainland bamboo rat farmers “back to poverty”
After Zhong Nanshan’s comments about the possible involvement of bamboo rats in the epidemic, the bamboo rat farming industry was soon dealt a blow.
On January 24, 2020, the CCP’s General Administration of Market Supervision, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and the State Forestry and Grassland Administration jointly issued an “Urgent Notice on Strengthening the Supervision of Wildlife Markets and Actively Preventing and Controlling the Epidemic,” which called for the “sealing and quarantine” of bamboo rats, badgers, and other wild animals, and prohibited the “transfer and trafficking” of these animals. The “transfer of trafficking”. Then, all provinces and cities also issued the relevant ban.
On February 24, the Communist Party’s National People’s Congress (NPC) adopted a decision to “completely ban illegal wildlife trade and eradicate the bad habit of indiscriminate wildlife consumption.
These decisions early last year were inconsistent with past local practices.
In August 2014, the “Gongcheng bamboo rat” in Guilin, Guangxi, was certified as a national agricultural product with geographical indication, and in 2018, the Guangxi Poverty Alleviation and Development Office and other nine departmental units jointly issued a notice, explicitly listing bamboo rat breeding as a “special industry development”. Many poor rural farmers have invested in the bamboo rat industry chain as a shortcut to “get rid of poverty and get rich” under the official call of the Communist Party of China to “fight poverty”.
Guangxi is a major bamboo rat breeder, it is estimated that 100,000 people in the region are engaged in the bamboo rat breeding industry, stocking 18 million, with an output value of 2 billion yuan, accounting for 70% of the country.
The mainland media reported last April that under the latest policy of the Chinese Communist Party, Guangxi’s 18 million bamboo rats were “sentenced to death”.
Another land media reports, more than a month down, by the Guangxi Wuxuan County led the establishment of the bamboo rat breeding cooperative has more than 1,600 bamboo rats starved to death, a loss of hundreds of thousands of yuan. In addition, they are carrying a loan of 460,000 yuan.
Huang Guohua, who had farmed bamboo rats, said, “The epidemic has brought us back to the former state of poverty, and more than before.”
EXCLUSIVE: Documents Leak Some Bamboo Rat Farmers Not Compensated by CCP Online Complaints
Although the Chinese government has offered a small amount of compensation, most of the bamboo rat farmers are unable to use the money to pay off loans and other debts, and it is difficult to restart their businesses. And some farmers have not received any compensation.
At the same time, the Communist Party’s official media strongly promoted the successful transformation of bamboo rat farmers. For example, Xinhua reported on December 27, 2020 that the “bamboo rat brother” had “successfully” transformed and started raising sheep.
(Web screenshot)
But the actual situation is far less optimistic than officially reported.
The Epoch Times obtained a copy of the December 4, 2020, “Response to the People’s Daily Online Local Leader Message Board” regarding the unreasonable compensation for bamboo rat farmers in Yongfu County, which leaks that bamboo rat farmers continue to complain about the CCP online.
Yongfu County bamboo rat farmers in the people’s network complaints, “we respond to the country, the autonomous region’s call to return to the countryside, the development of bamboo rat special breeding in the countryside …… is now due to the Central People’s Congress Standing Committee made the “decision”. We farmers from February 24 has been the implementation of national policy provisions prohibiting the sale, consumption, release and transport to date.”
“Farmers tormented for most of the year without income, but also in the investment of a lot of human and financial resources to continue to feed, has been overwhelmed. Now the autonomous region issued compensation documents …… get the response is that we outside the county to introduce the contract agreement signed, not in the scope of compensation …… now the county forestry bureau that does not recognize us as “affected farmers “Nor does it recognize our legal status of signing cooperation agreements with licensed and legal farms (households).” The farmer said.
The farmer said, “Since the ban on wilderness “decision” so far six months time the vast number of farmers in suffering huge economic pressure, I hope the government as soon as possible to come up with a disposal plan, so that farmers early stop loss …… hope that compensation funds as soon as possible to put in place, so that farmers as soon as possible to transform … …”
(Epoch Times)
Meanwhile, multiple additional documents obtained by the Epoch Times show that victimized bamboo rat farmers in Yongfu County have continued to complain online about the authorities’ failure to address their compensation issues.
In the September 30, 2020 document “Guilin City Network Public Opinion Instant Office” revealed that a netizen posted on Sina Weibo, “Sun car sun house I sun rat, dragged to death without treatment, central policy across the board, fortunately the policy has subsidies. But until now the relevant departments have not come forward to deal with properly. Dragged to now put us but qualify as illegal farming, let us the people’s heart cold ah!”
In the August 31, 2020 “Guilin City Network Public Opinion Instant Office” mentioned that some netizens complained in the Red Bean Forum that although the authorities issued compensation documents, but until now there are still dozens of bamboo rat colonists in Yongfu County have not been dealt with properly.
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