What really happened in Wuhan?
Lies in Lancet  When the Covid pandemic erupted, 27 top virologists got together and wrote an article in the prestigious Lancet journal (19 February 20), absolving China of all blame and asserting that it was a natural zoonotic epidemic that had emerged from the wet markets of Wuhan. In the highly polarized presidential campaign in America, this scientific judgment was used to dismiss all strident claims of President Trump and his cabinet members, accusing China of generating this virus in a lab from where it appeared to have leaked out. These were then cynically branded as mere conspiracy theories. With the heat and dust of the presidential campaign behind us, we have had time for more sober reflection and the picture that is emerging is not pretty. A number of disclosures have come under the Freedom of Information Act in the USA and the scientific community has taken a second hard look at the data. It now turns out that one of the lead authors of this defense of China in Lancet, was Peter Dasazak, head of the NGO, the Eco Health Alliance. He had a serious conflict of interest which should have disqualified him from commenting on issues pertaining to the Wuhan institute of Virology (WIV). It turns out that during President Obamas tenure, the gain of function research was being undertaken in some virology labs in US. This had been initiated by DARPA as part of its pre-empt programme (to anticipate nature and hostile counties) by producing souped up viruses (before nature could) and developing medicines and vaccines to counter them. Primary establishment was the US Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland. There were serious concerns of leakage and all such research was halted for two years. It was then that Dr Fauci of the NIH decided to offload all such research to foreign countries thru NGOs. As part of this, $3.7 million was given to Peter Dasazks Eco Health Organisation. He, along with the Chinese governments Ministry of Science and Technology, had jointly funded the gain of function research at the Wuhan institute. Subsequently, he was part of the WHO Team sent for investigations to Wuhan. He did not recuse himself and gave a second clean chit to WIV in the 30 March 21 WHO report. The lid was blown off this cover-up really by Nicholas Wades meticulously researched article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, one of the most prestigious scientific journals. He pointed out how Maj Gen Shi Zheng li, who was heading the WIV, had cooperated with Prof Ralph Baric of the North Carolina University for gain of function research on bat corona viruses. In fact, he had tutored her on the technique of serial passage through cell cultures that make the modified virus look natural. With Prof Barics help, she had been able to splice a SARs hook molecule on to the backbone of a bat coronavirus so that it would now attach on to the cells of human air ways in November 2015 itself. Chinese Miltary Interest in Bio Warfare  Back in 1999, I was serving in the Military Operations Directorate with NBC (Nuclear Chemical and Biological Warfare) as part of my charter. We were jolted to see a Book on Unrestricted Warfare by two Chinese Senior Colonels-Quiao Liang and Wang Xiangsi (they later rose to be generals). It was on how China could take on and defeat a super power like the USA by waging a no-holds-barred conflict that involved a multitude of means, including military and non- military. Non-military means included terrorism, biological warfare, cyber warfare, information warfare, economic warfare and a host of others. The aim was to bring the enemy to his knees, without a shot being fired, by non- contact warfare  This was followed up by a book War for Power by Guo- Jeiwi, a military researcher, in 2010. This openly talked of a new concept of war with biological characteristics. Further books followed, including one by Lt Gen Zhang Zibu, who openly talked of weaponising the virus. Official Military Doctrine: All these books by individual military officers could be taken as mere kite flying or veiled threats. However, in 2017, China updated its official military doctrine enshrined in the science of Military Strategy. This updated edition added a new chapter on biological warfare, titled Biology as a Domain for Military Strategy. China is a signatory to the biological warfare convention banning such weapons. The world should have protested loudly, but it did not. Smoking Gun  The Smoking Gun document, however, had been written even earlier. In 2015, Xu Dezhong, a senior Chinese Airforce virologist, had led a team of 18 scientists and authored an exhaustive study on biological warfare. Their findings were presented to the CMC and the highest leadership in China over 24 sessions- in itself a clear indication of the overwhelming significance allocated to this subject. This document actually explains what precisely has happened since then. Some of the crucial findings/ recommendations of this study merit highlighting in detail:  This report clearly stated that the SARS virus was a genetically engineered virus specifically designed to target China. This was startling and indicates a siege mentalitya deep seated Chinese perception that it is the victim of biological war. Ergo sum, China is fully justified in retaliating in kind. Such a Chinese mindset in itself is dangerous and has possibly precipitated the indiscriminate Wuhan virus release. This study spoke of how the new found technique of freeze drying micro-organisms has enabled storage of bio-war agents. These can subsequently be aerosolized whenever a biological warfare attack has to be mounted. Such an attack is so easy to mount and cannot really be traced back to source. There is complete deniability in such attacks. The study spoke of how the entire health care system in a society can be collapsed and crippled with such a biological attack. Not only will this cause mass casualties and widespread morbidity but induce tremendous psychological stress in victim countries. It can have long term disruptive impact and bring about economic collapse. Hence such bio agents are ideal to bring a country to its knees without a shot being fired. This actualizes Sun tzus axiom of subduing the enemy without fighting. At the very least it would set up the target country for a follow up military strike to exploit the severe disarray and disruption. Chinese Biological War Preprations  The unfortunate fact is China did not stop at theorizing and writing about bio-warfare. It took active and concerted steps to create this capability in a useable form. Consider the following:  There are two virological labs in Wuhan itself. The WIV lab was set up with French assistance as a level Four facility. It is headed by two PLA general rank officersMaj Gen Shi Zhengli (famed as Chinas bat woman and worlds leading expert on bat corona viruses) and Maj Gen Cao wei (who had served in Africa and dealt with MERS and Ebola epedemics).The very fact that Chinas virological labs are headed by military officers, indicates the military dimension of their programs. The trail goes back to 2012 when six Chinese miners in a disused Copper mine died of Pneumonia with lung patches similar to Covid. Gen Sheng Li rushed teams there and collected and studied samples from 276 bats in 2013. They published findings in2016 and identified the bat corona virus strain as RaBTCov/ 4991. (This was later found to be the same as the infamous strain Ra TG 13 which has 96.2% match with the genome sequence of Covid-19 virus.) In 2015, Gen Shi Zheng li had written four papers on how the SARS hook virus could be spliced on to the bat corona backbone to make it a highly lethal and communicable virus as part of gain of function. She was mentored by Prof Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina in USA. Not only did he help her with this gain of function research, he also taught her to do it via serial passage through cell cultures to mask it and make it look like a natural virus. Nicholas Wade has disclosed this. By Nov 2015 this souped up virus was ready in the Wuhan institute of Virology. This research continued through 2016. In 2017 an American team that had visited Wuhan, warned of lax protocols there and how these very dangerous pathogens stored there could leak out. Contact between US and Chinese scientists seemed to have declined steeply thereafter and Dr Sheng lis four papers were suddenly taken off the net. The whole program was suddenly made quite opaque. A recent study by a UK and Norway based duo of Micro- biologists called Dr Anges Dalgaleh and Berger Soransen has now quite conclusively proved that that the Wuhan coronavirus is not a natural virus but is definitely lab engineered. They noted that the SARS hook molecule had been spliced on to the backbone of the bat carona virus. This hook molecule had four positively charged amino acids  which made them easily attach to negatively charged human cells and become far more infectious. Here is the catch. Positively charged ions repel each other. Hence in natural organisms finding two such positively charged amino acids in a row is difficult. Three is a rarity. Four in a row gives the show awayit is definitely a lab-engineered virus. Holes in the Zoonotic Theory: The Zoonotic theory that this pandemic emerged from the Wuhan wet market is full of holes. To start with No bats are sold in the Wuhan wet markets. The nearest they are found is in the caves of Nanjing some 550 km away. The only people who went there to collect bats from Nanjing and Yunan caves were six operatives from the WIV. Three of them died in autumn 2019 of a disease with remarkably similar symptoms to Covid. All such viruses from animal vectors usually come thru an intermediary host. Thus SARS came via bats to civet (cats) to humans. This link was discovered in a matter of days. MERS came to man from bats via camels to humans. This link was discovered in just 4 months. Its over 18 months since the Covid pandemic hit us, till now there is no trace of the intermediary host. The reason is simple. There is none because it is not a natural virus. It was most deliberately engineered in a lab. Circumstantial Evidence  We have sufficient circumstantial evidence that by 2015, the top Chinese leadership was convinced that it was the victim of biological warfare via the SARS genetically engineered virus. Right or wrong is immaterial, what matters is the strong perception and siege mentality. We find that in 2015 itself, energetic steps being taken in WIV to weaponise the bat corona virus isolated from the defunct Copper mines. This gain of function virus was ready by November 2015 and China was ready to strike back! The updated edition of the official PLA doctrine in 2017 had a whole new chapter on biological warfare .Bio war was now official doctrine of PLA. Meanwhile, Donald Trump had become the president of USA and with great clarity, he identified China as the main adversary and challenger. He took very proactive steps to contain the rise of a highly aggressive China. He put tremendous pressure via arming Taiwan, stoking/ highlighting unrest in Hongkong, Xinjiang and Tibet and then via an all out Trade war. The US Navy pushed back strongly in Taiwan straits and South and East China seas. Thus, by 2019 China was under tremendous pressure. In September 2019, the military games took place in Wuhan and later Zhao lijian, official spokesperson of Chinese Foreign ministry, accused the US Special Forces of spreading the coronavirus in Wuhan under cover of the games. The veracity of the charge is another matter. I am highlighting the Chinese perceptions that could have become motivations for action. There are some media reports that in 2019, China made vaccination compulsory for all citizens. US intelligence reports indicate that in November 2019, three Chinese workers in the WIV had fallen sick with symptoms very similar to the Covid outbreak. The first Covid case was acknowledged only on 8 December 2019. Thereafter, starts a deliberate trail of obfuscation and deliberate suppression of information. Whistleblower doctors and researchers were killed or jailed; even in late December, WHO was being told that this disease was not communicable from human to human. Dr Guissepe, a top Italian Micro biologist, tells us that the PLA was given charge of containing the virus in Wuhan. For a nation supposedly taken by surprise, they did an amazingly efficient job. Beijing, a 1000 km away, and Shanghai, just 800 km away, were unscathed. However, 20 flights a day from Wuhan to New York and a similar number to Europe and other destinations were allowed to continue unchecked. On 20 January 2020, the WIV filed a use patent for Remdesivir, the much-touted cure for corona. To file a use patent, you have to test at least for two/three months. Thus, the Chinese knew all about Covid from at least November 2019 onwards, if not earlier. Yet, deliberate suppression of information continued. In fact, in February 20, over two months after acknowledgement of Covid, the Chinese Foreign Minister was calling upon all neighbouring countries to keep their borders open (ostensibly for prestige reasons). Whether the release was accidental or deliberate, China was certainly doing everything to spread the coronavirus and weaponise its release. We now come across a strange coincidence. By 8 December 2019, the first Covid patient had been acknowledged in Wuhan. On 28 December 2019, the Chinese Aircraft Carrier Liaoning had sailed out into the Taiwan straits and East and South China seas. The Chinese Navy and Air Force had started a series of muscular exercises against Taiwan, Japan and South China sea countries Two US Nuclear Powered Aircraft carriers had to be withdrawn from the Pacific as their crews were infected with Covid. China hurriedly readied and deployed its second Air craft carrier and became dangerously provocative, especially with its Air Force incursions into Taiwans AIZ. In end Mar-Apr 2020, China staged two mechanized divisions from Xinjiang and started Incursions against India in Ladakh. There is something seriously sinister in this juxtaposition of the pandemic and very aggressive military moves on all fronts. It almost smacks of an attempt to exploit a biological strike. In World War II, Japan and Germany had started invasions of China and Poland with staged incidents. The world is now veering around to the view that what happened in Wuhan was an accidental release. I have pointed out to a whole lot of circumstantial evidence that seems to suggest that given Chinas fear psychosis, it could well have been a Staged Accident. Such actions stem from perceptions and Chinas clear perception since 2015 has been that it has already been attacked by biological weapons- retaliation is therefore justified. There is a sadly capitulationist mindset, that the world can do nothing to China, so let sleeping dogs lie. I would contest that strongly. Phillipines had taken China to the ICJ and won its case on the South China Sea dispute. China ignored the ICJ verdict with contempt, but has had to pay a heavy price with the US Navy and other Quad nations Carrier battle groups steaming into South China Sea to strongly contest the restrictions on freedom of navigation in a big way. The IAEA is the worlds watchdog on nuclear proliferation. It has strong teeth to carry out intrusive inspections of nuclear reactors even in rouge nations. We need to rework the Biological Warfare Convention and create international watch dog bodies to carry out intrusive inspections of virological laboratories in all countries. The world cannot afford to let China get away scot-free on Covid. 167 million people have been infected and 3.5 million are dead. 3 lakh citizens have died in India itself. China and other nations (including Pakistan) will have to deterred if such mayhem has to be stopped. The world needs to get to gather and name and shame as the first step. Concerted multi-domain pressure is called for to deter China in a credible fashion.