Editor : Lin Shiyuan / https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/2/28/n12780719.htm / Direct translation
Image : The picture shows Yu Maochun, the former US Secretary of State Pompeo's China adviser, receiving an exclusive interview with the "American Thought Leader" program of The Epoch Times. (Screenshot of Epoch Times video)
Former U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo and China Policy Adviser Yu Maochun recently jointly published a review article in the Wall Street Journal "China’s Negligence Makes the World Pay A High Price: Beijing Obsessed with Viruses , but don’t care about biosafety".
The article points out many specific examples to illustrate that the global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 (CCP virus) is not unrelated to the CCP’s great leap forward in launching a biological virus research campaign and ignoring internationally accepted biosecurity measures. A reporter from "Voice of America" interviewed Yu Maochun, one of the authors of the article, and asked him to further explain the specific examples involved in the article.
Reporter: Why does the article focus on biosafety?
Yu Maochun: The pandemic of the new crown virus (CCP virus) reflects the nature of the Chinese Communist regime. The CCP is the most theoretically poisoned communist party. Its theory is Marxism-Leninism, but it basically has two points. The first is the great glory and correctness of the Communist Party, and the second is the superiority of the socialist system. The CCP’s decades of history have basically revolved around tossing China and the people through various practices and movements to prove the correctness of these two theories. Whether it is the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the reform and opening up, and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, they are all to prove these two truths that they believe are unbreakable.
The 2003 SARS virus pandemic turned the CCP into a veil of head covering, and I don’t know what happened. So the momentum for the Great Leap Forward came again. In this way, a great leap forward project with quick success and quick profit was launched, which is to mobilize the whole country to study the virus to find out the root cause and vaccine of the SARS virus. So the number of biochemical laboratories in China is surprising. There are more than 250 state key laboratories in China, which are distributed in eight disciplines. Biochemical laboratories account for 40%, which is the top priority. There are dozens of biological research institutes that study viruses all over the country. Do this thing. However, like the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, it ignored the human price to be paid.
We mentioned in the article that Chinese scientists have discovered nearly 2,000 new viruses in a little over ten years, and it took 200 years for the world to reach that many. (Yu Maochun pointed out that this is based on what the Chinese Association for Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences and CCTV said in the TV program "Science China" jointly produced in 2019). Therefore, with so many viruses being studied in such a country with very poor biosecurity management, it is inevitable that this kind of accident that will cause huge losses to people's lives and property is inevitable. Our focus is not that viruses are produced in nature or in laboratories. Our focus is that China's biosecurity system is very unsound. This is recognized by the CCP itself. Everyone from the general secretary to the director of basic laboratories believes that China's biosafety is not standard enough.
Reporter: The article mentioned Yuan Zhiming of Wuhan Institute of Virology. Has he already seen the hidden dangers of biological research safety?
Yu Maochun: Yuan Zhiming has served as the party secretary of the Wuhan Institute of Virology for a long time. He is a scientist himself and has a good understanding of the shortcomings of China's biosecurity. He has been advocating the improvement of China's biosafety system for a long time in China. He has written many articles and even opened an English magazine called "Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity." Among them, Yuan Zhiming and many of his colleagues raised many questions, saying that China's biosecurity has not reached international standards, conditions are poor, insufficient data, uneven distribution of laboratory funds and regional resources, and no attention is paid to them, and so on.
Reporter: At the same time as the Wuhan epidemic broke out, in early January 2020, Li Ning, a scholar of the Chinese University of Agriculture, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for trafficking in laboratory animals and milk. Your article mentioned that some netizens pointed out that a similar incident occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. What's the matter?
Yu Maochun: Yes. But these doubters are no longer there. Someone once pointed out the poor management of experimental animals at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including many experimental monkeys, many experimental animals sold as pets after being used up, and experimenters eating eggs used in experiments. These phenomena and allegations a lot of. A netizen who also had a medical background asked to confront Shi Zhengli, the deputy director of the research office. Shi Zhengli said it was impossible for her to use her life as a guarantee. But she dared not confront. So many things in it are not public and opaque.
Reporter: The article pointed out that the inadequacy of the Wuhan Institute of Virology's security measures poses a huge risk to global health. What does it specifically mean?
Yu Maochun: China has introduced the blueprint of the Lyon Biological Laboratory in France and used French technology to help design it. It was completed in 2015. At that time, a senior French official went to Wuhan to cut the ribbon. Previously, China and France reached an agreement that required France to send at least 50 researchers to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to participate in research. As a result, after the completion of the Wuhan Virus Institute, even a Frenchman was not allowed to enter, and the agreement was torn up after the establishment. The French side was very dissatisfied, and a person in charge resigned to protest China's actions. The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China is advertised as a model of international transparency. It does have a lot of international cooperation. It cooperates with laboratories and other research institutions of at least 6 universities in the United States. However, this kind of international cooperation is mainly "taking" rather than "giving". ". All the more than 30 full-time researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology are all Chinese, with the exception of one Chinese who they trust to work at the University of Texas. This kind of cooperation is superficial. Its core research is highly confidential and exclusive. It is not subject to international supervision and is very opaque.
The security and management verification process of the Wuhan Institute of Virology is also problematic. The Ministry of Science and Technology of China (CPC) evaluated all 75 key biomedical laboratories in China in 2016, and published the evaluation results in December 2017. At that time, the Wuhan Virus Research Institute was already second to none. It was touted by the official media as the virus research institute with the highest biosafety level, and was authorized to study the most virulent and dangerous viruses and pathogens. However, the Wuhan Institute of Virology failed to rank among the top 20 "excellent laboratories," and it was only one of the 46 "good laboratories." This is a very irresponsible manifestation of the Communist Party's political culture, which is eager for quick success and instant benefits. Since the catastrophic Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, such things have not changed fundamentally, because, as the Communist Party said, it is the "general line" of socialism and cannot easily be changed.
After the Wuhan Institute of Virology obtained the highest level of P4 biosecurity, two officials of the US Embassy in China, including a biochemical expert, visited the Institute of Wuhan Institute of Virology. They contacted many people and learned a lot about the Institute of Virology. After the visit, the biochemical expert from the U.S. State Department felt that the problem was very serious and reported to the State Department that their safety management procedures were poor, the quality of their personnel was not good, and there were many problems in biochemical safety. At that time, Yuan Zhiming was the director of the laboratory and Shi Zhengli was the deputy director.
Reporter: The article mentioned that the People's Liberation Army is conducting research on biological and chemical weapons at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Can you give a specific introduction?
Yu Maochun: In 2015, the PLA Military Medical Science Press published a book mainly written by biomedicine and weapons experts from the Fourth Military Medical University, specializing in the study of artificial viruses as biochemical weapons. They believed that the SARS virus in 2003 was a genetic weapon released to China by hostile foreign forces, and they enthusiastically introduced and recommended genetic weapons under the guidance of contemporary science. We also mentioned in the article that the Chinese government announced the International Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Review Conference in 2011, saying that Chinese military experts are studying the "creation of artificial pathogens" and "transformation of pathogens." Laying the foundation of genomics", "genetic markers for specific populations" and "targeted drug delivery technology to make pathogens easier to spread," and other biological weapons projects. We also mentioned that in January 2021, U.S. intelligence agencies have reason to believe that in the autumn of 2019, several staff members of the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill mysteriously, and that the institute had a secret cooperative research project with the Chinese military.
Reporter: After the outbreak of the Wuhan epidemic, Xi Jinping did not show up for a long time. The first major thing he did after he came out was biosafety legislation. Why is this and what is your analysis?
Yu Maochun: After the outbreak of the epidemic in early January, Xi Jinping did not say a word about it. A few weeks later, he came out to defend himself under strong pressure from international and domestic public opinion. He said that he presided over the Politburo meeting on January 7. The problem of the epidemic. But what did he say? The language is unknown. What we know is that on January 8, the second day of the meeting, when the official media completely blocked the epidemic information, he talked about the superiority of the Communist Party and the advanced nature of socialism. Party members must not forget their original intentions. Therefore, after the outbreak of the epidemic, his main concern is not the epidemic itself, but to highlight the positive image of the party and the superiority of the system. This is a phenomenon of theory poisoning, and it cannot be said that the party has failed. When the whole world was in a hurry, he came out in early February and said that he should immediately legislate. There are shortcomings and loopholes in the management of biological samples and specimens. This is his own words. He strictly ordered the Chinese government to immediately enact a biosafety law. If there are no such shortcomings and loopholes, and no such violations have occurred, there is no need for him to say such things.
Reporter: The article mentioned that after the outbreak in Wuhan, the People's Liberation Army sent a general to take over the facility. It also stated that the CCP ordered the destruction of virus samples collected from the earliest patients. Do the US intelligence agencies have any definite evidence?
Yu Maochun: Instead of using US intelligence agencies, the National Health Commission of the Chinese government ordered the Wuhan Institute of Virology by telephone on January 1 to issue Document No. 3 on January 2 to destroy these samples and strictly control the publication of information. There are now rumors in mainland China that local officials cannot hide from the Party Central Committee. In fact, they are not, but from top to bottom. The CCP reported that General Chen Wei had gone in mid-January. And later she said that China's new crown vaccine had been mass-produced in February. Therefore, she has already grasped the inside story of the virus, otherwise it would be impossible to boast that it could be mass-produced so early.
Reporter: Shi Zhengli is an international leader in the study of bats. A bat coronavirus that she focused on is very similar to the novel coronavirus. But she said she did not expect a pandemic to break out in Wuhan.
Yu Maochun: Shi Zhengli felt that these bats were all outside Hubei Province. She was surprised why the virus did not break out in these places, but in Wuhan. In fact, she overlooked an important point, that is, Shi Zhengli and her colleagues have collected and kept the virus-carrying bat samples they collected elsewhere in the Wuhan Institute of Virology for many years. She is the deputy director of the laboratory, known as the Batgirl, and has thousands of specimens. So these things do not grow naturally in the wild in Wuhan, but the Wuhan Institute of Virology has kept a lot of these virus specimens in the laboratory. Is it possible (SARS-CoV-2 outbreak) that it leaked from here? This is what we are concerned about. . Of course, the exact answer must be announced by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, storage system data, and its biosafety standards before we can know. But we now know that the research on bats written by Shi Zhengli and done by them is second to none in China. It is an indisputable fact that Wuhan Institute of Viology studies all large numbers of bat specimens with viruses.
Reporter: After the WHO returned from an investigation in China, although it has not yet released an official report, its members have concluded in an interview with the media that it is “very unlikely that the virus came from the laboratory”, but recently they also stated that: All assumptions will be considered. What is your reaction to this?
Yu Maochun: The WHO says it is extremely unlikely. I think they are extremely irresponsible. This is not the first time. Last year, the WHO already had a delegation to China. The Chinese government gave them a warm welcome, but it just refused to let them go to Wuhan. Finally the two people went to Wuhan. They stayed in Wuhan for a day. They didn't go to the hospital where the epidemic broke out, nor did they go to the virus research institute. The delegation left China the next day and wrote something when they returned. It is very irresponsible to praise the report of China's fight against the epidemic. I think the WHO has a difficulty, that is, it does not dare to offend China (the CCP). Its leadership is basically kidnapped by China (the CCP), but the people in charge below are very dissatisfied with China (the CCP). The US media interviewed many such people. Representatives of the World Health Organization in Geneva and even in Beijing were very dissatisfied with China (the CCP)'s actions and made countless requests for investigations, but China (the CCP) rejected them all. So, according to my observation, why did the CCP let the WHO in this time? Because they want to prove one of the earliest claims made by the CCP that the virus came out of the seafood market. They hope the WHO will find another host, but the animal host can't be found, so the CCP wants to do this. The WHO did not say that they could not find it, because they did not visit many places, but just took a look around. Just to say how strict the Wuhan Institute of Virology is and how advanced the biosecurity is, this is also very irresponsible, because many Chinese researchers think that their standards are not up to standard. Moreover, some members of this group currently have serious conflicts of interest. They should have been investigators, but they have become investigators. This is problematic.
Reporter: Do you think that if the CCP does not change its Great Leap Forward approach, the pandemic will not be the last disaster faced by mankind. Why? Perhaps Beijing has recognized this problem and has taken measures, and can still prove that the CCP is "great and glorious and correct" and that "socialism has the strongest ability to mobilize"?
Yu Maochun: The Communist Party of China monopolizes the resources of the whole of China and monopolizes the ways and channels of contact between the world and Chinese society. Therefore, China is a highly centralized and monopolistic country. Xi Jinping's February speech focused on two things. One is to immediately promulgate the Biosafety Law, saying that it will make up for the "shortcomings" and "loopholes" of biosafety. The second point is to talk about positive energy, to fully control public opinion and propaganda, to report to the world the heroic deeds of the Communist Party in fighting the epidemic, and to crack down on any negative reports. People like Fang Fang have been suppressed. The Communist Party's self-beautification image is consistent. Its good sense of self has basically not changed since 1949 and even since the founding of the party. This kind of eagerness and profitability has brought countless disasters to the Chinese people. Now that China (the CCP) wants to lead the world, of course the whole world will be very anxious and worried. So we hope that the CCP will lower its ambitions and be more pragmatic. China is a big country.
The Chinese people are very remarkable, but they cannot cause another huge disaster because of the established policy of the Chinese Communist Party, which is quick and easy. The Chinese people have seen a lot, so this epidemic is another big lesson.
Reporter: "Global Times" published an article criticizing your article, "Ignore WHO experts' refutation of conspiracy theories, and continue to hype the so-called ‘new crown virus leaked from the laboratory’. What’s your reaction to this?
Yu Maochun: They published several articles. One said that Pompeo was "a politician" and "a liar" and Yu Maochun was a "so-called" expert on China. Some articles are full of the spirit of the Cultural Revolution and political analysis and speculation, but they do not make any convincing rebuttals to the specific examples we put forward.
(Transfer from Voice of America)
