Once again I say thank you to Ian Birrell and his colleagues for this fine investigative journalism.
Here is the question I’d like to ask Mr. Birrell if I ever met him: how do you plan to publicize these discoveries about the possible origin of the virus, China’s role in hiding the facts and the possible involvement of Western health agencies in funding gain-of-function coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute?
Normally that would be a dumb question, right? Mr. Birrell would publish summaries of his research in major news outlets, longer accounts in major scientific journals and perhaps journals specializing in global affairs. He’d also appear on national TV and perhaps before Congress.
How many of these outlets are open to him today? I would guess the MSM will ignore his discoveries. He might get time on Fox and he can publish in the few smaller journals, such as Unherd, that aren’t irrevocably left-leaning. I suspect many mainstream scientific journals are closed to him (The Lancet, for example, appears to be politically compromised) and if they feel pressured to publish this research it might be as a small article with an innocuous title. So far as politics goes, a Democrat-dominated Congress won’t touch this story is my guess.
So how does the truth come out to a mass audience? Do we have to wait until the Republicans are next in power? Are the higher reaches of the US (and UK) government so compromised by association with the Wuhan Institute that even a Republican administration would rather bury this story?
Sad I should even have to wonder about these questions. Perhaps I’m even a racist for questioning China’s official narrative.
Great comment. I suspect the higher reaches of the US government, particularly, are so compromised, and our media such a pathetic disgrace, that this story will stay out of major news outlets
To be fair, I saw an article in the FT a couple of weeks ago that more or less summarised Birrell’s reporting from last January. So only about a year behind…
The remit of the The Guardian lately is ‘speaking truth to power’, yet they will not go near China’s culpability in Covid, and scream ‘RACIST!’ at anyone who does
Disgusting collusion/ cowardice
Sorry, but I beg to differ Lesley. These are the top items in my Guardian search for “wuhan”. Although they don’t express hate for China (which would be unprofessional), they often come down hard on the Chinese government, and certainly don’t reject the lab leak theory…
I’m not going to wade through these, but I do note that they are all from 2021, when the reality slapped corporate media through the face that the Wuhan lab leak was more than credible. The Guardian is no longer a credible news outlet to those with a more questioning bent.
Of course it is. In fact the guardian once parachuted a guy into their website who was working for a think thank sponsored by Australian dept of defence. The BBC is largely the same. So those of you who hate the MSM believes it when it suits. The uighers genocide isn’t believed outside the west. Muslim nations commend rather than condemn it. The evidence is one or two photos and satellite photos, of the same quality of the Iraq WMD.
Fighting a Cold War against China, from the other side of the world, is a lesson in stupidity. The ever declining west needs to control its borders, defeat the woke, fix the birthrate and that’s it. Only US imperialism is at stake here, and who cares. China invaded Taiwan, what’s it to you?
Matthew Powell
2 years ago
I suspect that western governments have a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence, and maybe more, that the pandemic originated in the Wuhan laboratories. However, with China having already showed that it will retaliate with severe diplomatic and economic sanctions to any official attempt to question the narrative and with the world economy severely damaged and still fragile from the attempts to contain the virus; it will be sometime yet, if ever, that anyone in power dares speak the truth.
Last edited 2 years ago by Matthew Powell
Martin Bollis
2 years ago
Just an interesting anecdote. This story was told to me at a social event (outdoor) in June 2020, by a business man I know and respect.
In the autumn of 2019 he was negotiating a London property deal with a Chinese businessman. During the negotiations, in October, he visited China and was taken on a tour – Great Wall, Pandas etc. He was temperature checked on checking into every hotel and in some railway stations.
Late in the day the Chinese businessman pulled out of the deal, predicting there would be a major recession in the west in 2HY 2020 which would present better priced opportunities.
The realpolitik is that we have to put up with what China does because their strategic positioning over the last 2 decades (and our abject failure of same) has left us almost powerless to resist,
The temperature checking may have been coincidence. I traveled to China a fair bit over the last decade for work, and I remember getting temperature checked most times. It’s theatre a lot of the time, just like the x-ray machines at train stations that no one is actually observing the screens
Saul D
2 years ago
The Wuhan lab books would tell us what was being worked on in the labs. Until WHO has reviewed those lab books, the lab release theory cannot be ruled out.
More importantly, the outbreak demonstrates the importance of international monitoring of all labs manipulating viruses whether or not the virus was released from Wuhan. As we have learnt, this is way more dangerous than say chemical or nuclear weapons development.
“importance of international monitoring of all labs manipulating viruses”
That’s a really good point. Thanks
jill dowling
2 years ago
Good article, but should be titled “How China made Covid and what did they do to ensure WHO covered it up too?”
Richard Morley
2 years ago
Please read Sharri Markson’s ‘what really happened in Wuhan’ She has done a great job uncovering the corruption behind it all
D Glover
2 years ago
“It would be deemed unacceptable if it was in Sierra Leone or Pakistan, so why should it be different with China,”
There’s the problem; if Sierra Leone or Pakistan unleashed a plague like this on us and then lied about it, they might get condign punishment. China does a lot of our manufacturing, owns much of our debt, invest in our infrastructure, their students come and keep our universities in profit. They also react furiously to criticism. China has passed the point where we could tell them off for anything, however egregious.
OK, if China made Covid worse, then who made Covid bad? Or just who made Covid? The paper trail of US patent applications from 2002 until 2019 regarding Corona viruses and vaccination candidates aimed at human exploitation makes for disturbing reading and conjecture.
Susan Bennett
2 years ago
Great article, Ian but no-one wants the truth to come out. There’s a good chance it came from the Wuhan lab, funded by American money and British know-how.
Mike Bell
2 years ago
The Chinese may have delayed and suppressed info for a while, but sent us the DNA sequence on Jan 12th 2020. They locked down Wuhan.
The Oxford lab took it seriously and started designing their vaccine THAT WEEKEND.
There was a major outbreak in Italy. No UK lock-down.
Eventually lock-down 23rd March – but still airports open.
Whether or not China delayed, suppressed information etc is largely irrelevant as they told us what was happening and we failed to act.
Analogy: The manufacturer has suppressed info that your model of car has a fault that is occasionally fatal for 3 months, but then tells you.
You hear about failures of the same model.
You continue to drive the car, it fails and you are hurt.
You then blame the accident on their delay, not on your own negligence.
According to BBC report, Wuhan lockdown was 23rd Jan 2020. Yes a delay, but it was an unknown virus.
Even when the UK did it’s partial lockdown March 23rd, the borders were still ope, particularly air. Known virus threat.
So, if you attribute mal-intent to the Chinese, why not to UK also?
In choosing between ‘c**k-up’ and ‘conspiracy’ interpretations, always to check the c**k-up option first as this is most likely.
What wasn’t expanded on in the article was not only the initial obfuscation, but the link between China’s Belt and Road project and the first big Euro outbreak in Northern Italy. Or the fact that some cities in China underwent Draconian lockdowns while the Chinese did nothing to screen passengers for outbound flights from China. The CPC shared exactly the wrong things around this virus, not naively.
My particular point is that Xi, Jinping took personal charge of the epidemic on 5 January 2020, but the police did not arrive on the gate of the People’s University, to restrict movement and check ID, until 26 January 2020 – the day after Chinese New Year. 21 days is enough time for the virus to have spread from Wuhan via international flights around the world.
Giles Chance
2 years ago
I arrived with my Chinese wife in Beijing on 13 January 2020., and departed on the last plane out, via Lufthansa, Beijing to Munich, on 1 Feb 2020 at 2.20 am. I wrote an article about what we saw while in Beijing, first on social media in China, then on TV. It was published by Anthem Press, as a blog. PLEASE READ IT https://www.anthempressblog.com/2020/07/06/covid-19-china-and-the-new-cold-war-where-to-from-here/
Interesting account. Governments have to join dots to understand a situation and then co-ordinate a response. There are two patterns here – understanding that a pandemic is underway and responding to it and understanding a cluster of illness centred on the research establishments. In China the former started slowly and accelerated decisively leading to China being 215/222 in the list of cases per head of population, only small islands fared better. The latter shows enough smoke to indicate information has been suppressed to avert criticism. The world-wide academic community must, unanimously, make it clear to China that total transparency is a fundamental condition for being part of that community. Currently the most plausible account is that internationally sponsored gain of function research was conducted with a view to finding ways to help medical treatments and there was a lab leak. China will benefit by being transparent.
I agree with your analysis. My particular point is that Xi, Jinping took personal charge of the epidemic on 5 January 2020, but the police did not arrive on the gate of the People’s University, to restrict movement and check ID, until 26 January 2020 – the day after Chinese New Year. 21 days is enough time for the virus to have spread from Wuhan via international flights around the world.
Once again I say thank you to Ian Birrell and his colleagues for this fine investigative journalism.
Here is the question I’d like to ask Mr. Birrell if I ever met him: how do you plan to publicize these discoveries about the possible origin of the virus, China’s role in hiding the facts and the possible involvement of Western health agencies in funding gain-of-function coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute?
Normally that would be a dumb question, right? Mr. Birrell would publish summaries of his research in major news outlets, longer accounts in major scientific journals and perhaps journals specializing in global affairs. He’d also appear on national TV and perhaps before Congress.
How many of these outlets are open to him today? I would guess the MSM will ignore his discoveries. He might get time on Fox and he can publish in the few smaller journals, such as Unherd, that aren’t irrevocably left-leaning. I suspect many mainstream scientific journals are closed to him (The Lancet, for example, appears to be politically compromised) and if they feel pressured to publish this research it might be as a small article with an innocuous title. So far as politics goes, a Democrat-dominated Congress won’t touch this story is my guess.
So how does the truth come out to a mass audience? Do we have to wait until the Republicans are next in power? Are the higher reaches of the US (and UK) government so compromised by association with the Wuhan Institute that even a Republican administration would rather bury this story?
Sad I should even have to wonder about these questions. Perhaps I’m even a racist for questioning China’s official narrative.
Great comment. I suspect the higher reaches of the US government, particularly, are so compromised, and our media such a pathetic disgrace, that this story will stay out of major news outlets
To be fair, I saw an article in the FT a couple of weeks ago that more or less summarised Birrell’s reporting from last January. So only about a year behind…
… although, to be fair, it’s still a great article
Excellent article once again from Ian Birrell.
And isn’t The Guardian just a woeful media outlet.
The remit of the The Guardian lately is ‘speaking truth to power’, yet they will not go near China’s culpability in Covid, and scream ‘RACIST!’ at anyone who does
Disgusting collusion/ cowardice
Birrell is as mainstream media as it gets. Hating China is what the MSM wants and it’s not like the Guardian is opposed to that.
Hating China is not what the corporate media (mainly left) wants, especially The Guardian. Just rubbish.
Sorry, but I beg to differ Lesley. These are the top items in my Guardian search for “wuhan”. Although they don’t express hate for China (which would be unprofessional), they often come down hard on the Chinese government, and certainly don’t reject the lab leak theory…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/18/china-making-example-jailed-wuhan-covid-journalist-zhang-zhan-lawyer?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2021/jun/07/the-wuhan-lab-leak-theory?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/08/wuhan-journalist-zhang-zhan-nominated-rsf-press-freedom-award?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/jun/03/the-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-podcast?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/22/the-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-is-more-about-politics-than-science?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/22/china-refuses-further-inquiry-into-covid-19-origins-in-wuhan-lab?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
I’m not going to wade through these, but I do note that they are all from 2021, when the reality slapped corporate media through the face that the Wuhan lab leak was more than credible. The Guardian is no longer a credible news outlet to those with a more questioning bent.
You probably wouldn’t forgive yourself if you did take the time to wade. Me too!
Of course it is. In fact the guardian once parachuted a guy into their website who was working for a think thank sponsored by Australian dept of defence. The BBC is largely the same. So those of you who hate the MSM believes it when it suits. The uighers genocide isn’t believed outside the west. Muslim nations commend rather than condemn it. The evidence is one or two photos and satellite photos, of the same quality of the Iraq WMD.
Fighting a Cold War against China, from the other side of the world, is a lesson in stupidity. The ever declining west needs to control its borders, defeat the woke, fix the birthrate and that’s it. Only US imperialism is at stake here, and who cares. China invaded Taiwan, what’s it to you?
I suspect that western governments have a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence, and maybe more, that the pandemic originated in the Wuhan laboratories. However, with China having already showed that it will retaliate with severe diplomatic and economic sanctions to any official attempt to question the narrative and with the world economy severely damaged and still fragile from the attempts to contain the virus; it will be sometime yet, if ever, that anyone in power dares speak the truth.
Just an interesting anecdote. This story was told to me at a social event (outdoor) in June 2020, by a business man I know and respect.
In the autumn of 2019 he was negotiating a London property deal with a Chinese businessman. During the negotiations, in October, he visited China and was taken on a tour – Great Wall, Pandas etc. He was temperature checked on checking into every hotel and in some railway stations.
Late in the day the Chinese businessman pulled out of the deal, predicting there would be a major recession in the west in 2HY 2020 which would present better priced opportunities.
The realpolitik is that we have to put up with what China does because their strategic positioning over the last 2 decades (and our abject failure of same) has left us almost powerless to resist,
The temperature checking may have been coincidence. I traveled to China a fair bit over the last decade for work, and I remember getting temperature checked most times. It’s theatre a lot of the time, just like the x-ray machines at train stations that no one is actually observing the screens
The Wuhan lab books would tell us what was being worked on in the labs. Until WHO has reviewed those lab books, the lab release theory cannot be ruled out.
More importantly, the outbreak demonstrates the importance of international monitoring of all labs manipulating viruses whether or not the virus was released from Wuhan. As we have learnt, this is way more dangerous than say chemical or nuclear weapons development.
All records & samples that were worked on in the WIV have been destroyed.
Got a link…?
Please read Sharri Markson’s ‘what really happened in wuhan’
Fantastic book. I consumed it via audible
“importance of international monitoring of all labs manipulating viruses”
That’s a really good point. Thanks
Good article, but should be titled “How China made Covid and what did they do to ensure WHO covered it up too?”
Please read Sharri Markson’s ‘what really happened in Wuhan’ She has done a great job uncovering the corruption behind it all
There’s the problem; if Sierra Leone or Pakistan unleashed a plague like this on us and then lied about it, they might get condign punishment.
China does a lot of our manufacturing, owns much of our debt, invest in our infrastructure, their students come and keep our universities in profit. They also react furiously to criticism.
China has passed the point where we could tell them off for anything, however egregious.
The truth is the truth. That is important.
OK, if China made Covid worse, then who made Covid bad? Or just who made Covid? The paper trail of US patent applications from 2002 until 2019 regarding Corona viruses and vaccination candidates aimed at human exploitation makes for disturbing reading and conjecture.
Great article, Ian but no-one wants the truth to come out. There’s a good chance it came from the Wuhan lab, funded by American money and British know-how.
The Chinese may have delayed and suppressed info for a while, but sent us the DNA sequence on Jan 12th 2020. They locked down Wuhan.
The Oxford lab took it seriously and started designing their vaccine THAT WEEKEND.
There was a major outbreak in Italy. No UK lock-down.
Eventually lock-down 23rd March – but still airports open.
Whether or not China delayed, suppressed information etc is largely irrelevant as they told us what was happening and we failed to act.
Analogy: The manufacturer has suppressed info that your model of car has a fault that is occasionally fatal for 3 months, but then tells you.
You hear about failures of the same model.
You continue to drive the car, it fails and you are hurt.
You then blame the accident on their delay, not on your own negligence.
Please read my article (link below). I was in Beijing, with my wife, 13 Jan 2020 to 1 Feb 2020. We saw it.
https://www.anthempressblog.com/2020/07/06/covid-19-china-and-the-new-cold-war-where-to-from-here/
According to BBC report, Wuhan lockdown was 23rd Jan 2020. Yes a delay, but it was an unknown virus.
Even when the UK did it’s partial lockdown March 23rd, the borders were still ope, particularly air. Known virus threat.
So, if you attribute mal-intent to the Chinese, why not to UK also?
In choosing between ‘c**k-up’ and ‘conspiracy’ interpretations, always to check the c**k-up option first as this is most likely.
What wasn’t expanded on in the article was not only the initial obfuscation, but the link between China’s Belt and Road project and the first big Euro outbreak in Northern Italy. Or the fact that some cities in China underwent Draconian lockdowns while the Chinese did nothing to screen passengers for outbound flights from China. The CPC shared exactly the wrong things around this virus, not naively.
My particular point is that Xi, Jinping took personal charge of the epidemic on 5 January 2020, but the police did not arrive on the gate of the People’s University, to restrict movement and check ID, until 26 January 2020 – the day after Chinese New Year. 21 days is enough time for the virus to have spread from Wuhan via international flights around the world.
I arrived with my Chinese wife in Beijing on 13 January 2020., and departed on the last plane out, via Lufthansa, Beijing to Munich, on 1 Feb 2020 at 2.20 am. I wrote an article about what we saw while in Beijing, first on social media in China, then on TV. It was published by Anthem Press, as a blog. PLEASE READ IT
https://www.anthempressblog.com/2020/07/06/covid-19-china-and-the-new-cold-war-where-to-from-here/
Interesting account. Governments have to join dots to understand a situation and then co-ordinate a response. There are two patterns here – understanding that a pandemic is underway and responding to it and understanding a cluster of illness centred on the research establishments. In China the former started slowly and accelerated decisively leading to China being 215/222 in the list of cases per head of population, only small islands fared better. The latter shows enough smoke to indicate information has been suppressed to avert criticism. The world-wide academic community must, unanimously, make it clear to China that total transparency is a fundamental condition for being part of that community. Currently the most plausible account is that internationally sponsored gain of function research was conducted with a view to finding ways to help medical treatments and there was a lab leak. China will benefit by being transparent.
I agree with your analysis. My particular point is that Xi, Jinping took personal charge of the epidemic on 5 January 2020, but the police did not arrive on the gate of the People’s University, to restrict movement and check ID, until 26 January 2020 – the day after Chinese New Year. 21 days is enough time for the virus to have spread from Wuhan via international flights around the world.