Scientists prepare rebuttal letter to Science on virus lab leak theory: insider by Chen Qingqing May 31 2021

A soldier guards outside the Fort Detrick.

A number of preeminent epidemiologists and scientists in China and overseas said it’s absolute nonsense to let intelligence agencies lead COVID-19 origins-tracing work, and some scientists are working on a letter to Science magazine to rebut the “lab leak” theory, a source close to the matter informed the Global Times on Monday, after the UK intelligence unit, following Washington, said it believes it’s “feasible” that the pandemic began from a Chinese lab leak.

The latest political hyping of the question of the virus origins, led by the US government, recently aroused growing criticism among Chinese scientists. “It’s ridiculous to ask intelligence units to do the work that should be done by scientists,” Zeng Guang, former Chinese CDC head epidemiologist, told the Global Times.

After US President Joe Biden asked US intelligence agencies to redouble their efforts in investigating the origins of the COVID-19 last week, the UK reportedly said it believes “it’s feasible” that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab, according to media reports on Sunday. The lab leak theory has been a conspiracy theory constantly hyped by Western politicians and media outlets since the beginning of the epidemic in order to shift the blame to China for the West’s own failures in tackling the epidemic effectively.

Western intelligence speculated there was a remote chance that the virus had leaked from the lab where research was conducted into bat-derived coronaviruses, but there has since been a reassessment, and a lab leak is considered “feasible,” some reports said.

No evidence was mentioned when they brought up this new hypothesis, a source close to the WHO origins-tracing work told the Global Times on Monday when asked about the piece of information shared by UK intelligence. He added that these are the UK’s conservatives.

It has been quite a challenging moment for scientists around the world as the US-led West has been playing the “origins-tracing” card in pressuring China by mixing this scientific question with politics, adding more obstacles to global efforts in fighting the pandemic, according to experts and officials.

Some scientists are working on a rebuttal to the Science letter from 18 scientists, the source said.

On May 14, 18 researchers published a letter in the magazine arguing that the idea of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 leaking from a lab in China must be explored more deeply, calling for a “proper investigation,” according to the website of the magazine.

A joint WHO-China report on tracing the origins of COVID-19 dismissed the possibility of the virus being leaked from a lab, as the report said a lab leak was “extremely unlikely,” pointing to a possible path of transmission between animals and humans and transmission through frozen food.

The global investigation on the virus origins is the direction that Chinese scientists believe the next stage probe should be. However, a heated debate over the future direction of the WHO’s investigation into the origins appeared to head for a showdown in the closing days of the World Health Assembly, which is scheduled to end on Tuesday, according to global health news site Health Policy Watch.

Origins-tracing work concerning infectious diseases is very difficult, either to trace back the patient zero or the first infected animal. But what’s important is to verify different hypotheses to understand the route of the virus’ transmission and how to cut it off, Zeng told the Global Times.

“It’s much easier to find out whether it was a lab leak compared with tracing animal-human transmission, as there must have been evidence left through lab spillovers – for example, the infected staff members or the contaminated environment,” Zeng said.

WHO experts have already made the assessment on all the above-mentioned hypotheses during their visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, with no evidence found, “and I think that’s the end of the story,” he said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a press conference on Monday that origins-tracing work should be led by scientists, rather than intelligence staff, and also needs joint efforts instead of divergences and can’t be dictated by certain countries.

“China has invited the WHO experts to conduct the work twice, and other countries are urged to do the same,” he said.

Chinese scientists and officials said it’s time for the US to welcome the WHO team, like what China has done, to thoroughly investigate its own biolabs and answer a series of questions concerning the early cases and infectious diseases dated to 2019 in the US.

While a letter from 209 House Republicans called for a congressional investigation into the origins of the COVID-19, claiming that there is “mounting evidence the pandemic started in a Chinese lab,” Zeng, the preeminent Chinese epidemiologist, said “it’s very ridiculous” to make such a proposal.

“Have they learned what’s been found last time from the lab during the WHO-China joint team study? Are there any new hypothesis? What do they want to learn this time?” Zeng asked, who further questioned whether the US president really understands science.

The Chinese government has been urging the US repeatedly to follow China’s lead to invite the WHO experts to the US, open Fort Detrick and biolabs overseas to the rest of the world, and disclose the detailed data and information on the unexplained outbreaks of respiratory disease in northern Virginia in July 2019 and the EVALI outbreak in Wisconsin.

“Why has the US not followed the lead? I believe that the US government has fears about the possible loopholes in its own labs that would probably lead the experts to find out more systematic problems with its labs,” Zeng said.

New York Times: “Admit nothing, deny everything, counter-accusations” — that’s how they are trained. When they accuse others of producing the virus in a lab, chances are it was indeed produced in lab but by themselves. “什麼都不承認，什麼都否認，反指責” – 他們就是這樣被訓練的。當他們指責別人在實驗室生產病毒時，很可能它確實是在實驗室生產的，而是他們自己生產的。

New York Times: WASHINGTON TALK: BRIEFING – WASHINGTON TALK: Tribute to C.I.A. June 12, 1987

Representative Stephen J. Solarz, a Brooklyn Democrat who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tells this story about a recent fact-finding trip to Honduras: At a camp for the Nicaraguan insurgents, a United States intelligence agent introduced the Congressman to a contra officer. The officer was wearing a baseball cap with a pyramid design in front. On each side of the pyramid was a legend: ”Admit Nothing -Deny Everything – Make Counter-Accusations.” ”I asked him where he got the hat,” Mr. Solarz said, ”and he answered that it had been run off at the special effects shop in Langley,” the Virginia district where the Central Intelligence Agency is based.

Video: Joy Luck Club and casual home dinner with friends on Sunday 5-30-21 lucky me got 自摸十三么 first time this year.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zFUqIeXtTzw
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Racist double standards – RSF appeals to release US foreign agent Jimmy Lai, but what about US Capitol rioters? By Ai Jun May 30 2021

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) submitted on Friday an urgent appeal to the UN to “take all measures necessary to obtain the immediate release” of Hong Kong media tycoon, US foreign agent and secessionist Jimmy Lai Chee-ying.

“It’s about time that the international community takes action to stop the judicial harassment of Jimmy Lai and to pressure the Hong Kong government into restoring full press freedom,” the appeal reads.

The point is, does the RSF actually believe it is qualified to identify what press freedom is?

Lai was one of the backstage manipulators of a series of social violence and turmoil in Hong Kong. He has been convicted of violating Hong Kong law, including attending and organizing an illegal assembly, colluding with foreign countries or forces to endanger national security and tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice.

That being said, the appeal of RSF is suggesting one thing: “Freedom of press” can be used as an excuse to acquit those who have criminally endangered national security. In that case, the RSF should be consistent to demand the release of the over 430 people who were arrested in connection with the Capitol Hill riots. However, RSF’s double standards are laid bare here. It condemned the violent protest on Capitol Hill, yet clamors those who incite the same thing in China must be protected.

The Paris-based RSF has been called an “independent NGO” and “civil society group” without political bias. Yet a simple browse into its sponsors could tell that it does not deserve the titles at all.

The Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is labeled as “a CIA front” with the aim to promote the so-called democracy abroad, is one of RSF’s sugar daddies. Reports have shown that radical groups in Hong Kong received significant sums of funding from the NED to carry out the riots in the city.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Sunday that NGOs like RSF are one of the US tools to conduct interferential activities in non-Western countries to meet Washington’s own political targets.

Reports of the RSF interfering in the domestic affairs of Cuba, Ukraine and Uzbekistan can be found from time to time over the years. Over the past month, its Twitter account has expressed support for reporters mainly from China, such as Chinese-Australian journalist Yang Hengjun, who is charged with espionage, and those in Turkey, Ethiopia, Ghana, who have violated local laws.

On Thursday, the organization even led a protest at the Belarusian border against dissident journalists’ arrest in Belarus, which is not the first time the so-called media watchdog voiced concerns for “crackdown on press freedom in Belarus.”

However, the organization seems to be OK with itself remaining silent over the US crackdown on Edward Snowden’s freedom of speech, turning a blind eye to Washington oppression of Chinese and Russian journalists in the US, or Twitter and Facebook shutting down accounts of former president Donald Trump’s supporters.

When Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party authorities decided not to renew the broadcast license for local Chung T’ien Television (CTi) in 2020 for its pro-Chinese mainland stance, and when the island expelled two Chinese mainland journalists in the same year, RSF pretentiously articulated the moves did not violate press freedom. Now, it is thick-skinned enough to appeal for Lai.

It is worth noting that NGOs like RSF do not work alone. They are usually well coordinated with the US mainstream media, political figures and even government policies, Li said.

Yet the US has trapped itself by abusing double standards in this self-righteous and presumptuous manner. Unless the RSF advocates for Capitol rioters as well when defending Lai, both the organization and its funders will become the butt of jokes eventually.

5/28/2021 Police was assaulted outside R&G San Francisco California Chinatown 在嶺南小館門口，警察都受到傷害！更何況平民百姓！US not a safe place to live or raise your children. In China in any cities whether it is 2:00pm or 2:00am whether you are Chinese or non-Chinese walking down any streets whether I am alone or with friends so many times since 1985 I never had to worry about my own safety. This is the best freedom, democracy and human rights in the world that I don’t need guns to give me a sense of security. It is because it is the Chinese Government who did their jobs to keep their citizens safe just like COVID19! Americans’ talk is cheap, when it comes to performance only good at BS, lies and propaganda.
https://youtu.be/Jry26lsTTN4
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Video: Remembering Joe Yuey 周鋭

Joe Yuey, patron of the arts, restaurateur and a leader in San Francisco’s Chinese American community for decades, has died at the age of 99.

Mr. Yuey, who was born in Guangdong province in China in August 1906, died Monday of natural causes at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

“The death of Mr. Joe in many respects signals the end of a very long era during which Chinese in the United States were segregated and largely confined to Chinatown ghettos in major American cities,” said Ling-chi Wang, a UC Berkeley professor of Asian American and ethnic studies. “And Chinatown was the center of the social, cultural, economic and political life of Chinese America.”

A gradual Chinatown exodus that began during and after World War II quickened during the late 1960s, accompanied by demands by young Chinese Americans — influenced by the civil rights movement — for social change inside and outside their community.

“Mr. Joe played a critical role during this period of rapid transition in Chinatown,” Wang said. “On the one hand, he was an integral part of the Chinatown establishment and, in fact, a recognized leader within the establishment. On the other hand, he was the only one within the establishment who had a different vision of Chinatown’s future. … In effect, he became the behind-the-scenes, most crucial mentor and staunchest supporter of all the anti-establishment activities in Chinatown.”

In 1923, at age 17, Mr. Yuey immigrated to the United States. After being detained at the immigration center on Angel Island, he moved to Merced and worked as a dishwasher in nearby Los Banos. In 1930, he relocated to Stockton and learned about business from an enterprising relative. Years later, Mr. Yuey would open an import-export firm in San Francisco.

In 1939, he helped form a corporation that raised $250,000 to create a Chinese village at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.

During the expo, he became friends with Langdon Warner, curator of the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, who ignited Mr. Yuey’s passion for collecting Chinese art — an interest evidenced early when he followed street peddlers in China to admire their wares.

In the 1940s, Mr. Yuey also formed a friendship with athlete and philanthropist Avery Brundage, whose holdings initially formed the core of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

Mr. Yuey was a major force behind the creation of the museum and lent it works from his enormous collection. He also helped create the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco and frequently served on the board of the Chinese American Democratic Club.

“He was a really cultured Chinese gentleman,” said Vyolet Chu, secretary of the New China Education Foundation in San Francisco.

She and her husband, Daniel Chu, met Mr. Yuey in 1949 at On On, a low-cost Chinatown restaurant he owned that catered to young people. In 1960, he reopened it as the Imperial Palace. Twenty-five years later, he and business associates started Tommy Toy’s restaurant.

“He was a health addict,” said Daniel Chu.

Once the Chus and Mr. Yuey drove down to Palm Springs. “We stopped at Harris Ranch, and I ordered a hamburger,” Vyolet Chu recalled. “He said, ‘No! You order chicken,” and added, “You have to eat onions and garlic.’ They were two things I hated.”

She said Mr. Yuey was deeply attached to Chinatown, where he lived for many years. He loved to walk and enjoyed watching men play card and board games in Portsmouth Square — even though he despised gambling.

Wang said Mr. Yuey backed the progressive Chinese for Affirmative Action organization and the fight to preserve the International Hotel on Kearny Street. He advocated ties between China and the United States — going against strong pro-Taiwan sentiment in Chinatown.

Chu said Mr. Yuey helped pioneer the Chinese American Democratic Club’s early slate-card mailings and voter registration drives. And his Imperial Palace, Wang said, was a fund-raising center for both liberal Democrats and progressive Chinese American candidates.

“Chinatown and San Francisco have lost a great leader,” Wang said.

Mr. Yuey was preceded in death by Chan Lin Yuey, his wife of many years. He is survived by his current wife, Ann, and son Garvin Yuey of San Francisco, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

A wake will be held tonight at Halsted’s mortuary at 1123 Sutter St. in San Francisco from 6 to 8 p.m., followed by a funeral there at 2 p.m. Saturday and a memorial Jan. 8 at the Great Star Theater, 636 Jackson St., San Francisco.

https://johnsonwkchoi.business.blog/2021/05/30/video-remembering-joe-yuey/
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Video: Real-World COVID-19 Vaccine Safety & Effectiveness Comparison In China, Mexico And Hungary. 中國、墨西哥和匈牙利的COVID-19 疫苗安全性和有效性比較.

It is not fair to compare them without considering age, health status and vaccination time. And we have to say some deaths may not be vaccine-related. Vaccination time is a critical factor as it takes time for the vaccine to trigger the generation of antibodies. After the vaccination, one shot for Cansino and Johnson and Johnson, and two shots for other vaccines, it usually needs several weeks to generate enough antibodies.
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China accelerates COVID-19 vaccination by Global Times May 29 2021

‘Come to mainland to get vaccinated!’ says former president of New Party of Taiwan as island faces severe vaccine shortage by Fan Lingzhi May 30 2021

Residents of the island of Taiwan take rapid test for COVID-19 on Tuesday. The island reported 281 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and six deaths, bringing the death toll to 35, on Tuesday and local authorities decided to extend Level 3 Alert until June 14.

“Coming to the mainland to get vaccinated against COVID-19” has become a major consideration for many Taiwan residents given the grave epidemic situation and shortage of vaccines there, said Yok Mu-ming, former president of the pro-unification New Party of Taiwan. Yok told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Sunday that he was impressed by the strict quarantine and anti-epidemic measures in the mainland while staying at a hotel in quarantine after coming to Shanghai to take the jab.

Mainland cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen in South China’s Guangdong Province have started to administer vaccine doses to Taiwan compatriots living in the mainland for free, and those whom Global Times talked to said that there have been no adverse effects, and that they went through the exact same process as local residents in the mainland.

Yok earlier announced through a video that he was about to depart from the island to Shanghai to get vaccinated. Starting from April 19, the municipal government in Shanghai included local Taiwan compatriots aged 18 to 75 who live in Shanghai into the scope of those eligible for the Chinese-made vaccine jabs. The former president of the New Party of Taiwan told the Global Times that when the Taiwan residents most need help from the mainland, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities still focus on ideological battles, using the epidemic to serve its political goals and seek “secession.”

“I would rather go through the quarantine process to get vaccinated in the mainland, and I don’t waste time anymore,” he said, noting that he came to the mainland with his wife, and underwent quarantine in different rooms.

When he arrived at Shanghai, he also experienced strict but reassuring arrival anti-epidemic tests, Yok noted. “Before departure, I took the nucleic acid test, which was negative. When I arrived, I took the tests again with both nasal and throat samples,” he said.

“I think they did the tests more carefully here in the mainland,” Yok said, noting that the swab tests were also taken deeper as he felt he was about to throw up.

Also, it was a long and rigorous procedure from the airport to the hotel where he is undergoing quarantine, but everything was done in an orderly way. For example, professional staff in protective suits guided him to the room, and there were staff accompanying during the whole process, he told the Global Times.

Yok also urged Taiwan residents who are able to come to the mainland to get vaccinated here, as he knows many of them are very interested in this plan.

The island reported 493 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, including 486 domestic infections and seven imported ones, in addition to 21 deaths, according to local media reports. The DPP authority has been widely criticized by experts for rejecting mainland vaccines and ignoring officials’ calls to purchase those via local retailers, as the island faces a vaccine shortage.

Cheng Po-yu, executive director of the cross-Straits Youth Exchange Association who recently took the vaccine in Beijing, told the Global Times there were no adverse effects, Taiwan residents are treated the same as others, and the process is very fast.

“The information for Taiwan residents vaccinated in Beijing could be accessed on the e-health certificate on smartphone, which can be updated simultaneously,” he suggested.

Mahbubani called out the racism underlying the China Threat narrative in 2019, before the pandemic Mahbubani 在新冠病毒大流行之前就在 2019 年的中國威脅論中指出了種族主義

East Asia Forum: A ‘yellow peril’ revival fuelling Western fears of China’s rise
5 June 2019 Author: Kishore Mahbubani, NUS

Do we arrive at geopolitical judgements from only cool, hard-headed, rational analysis? If emotions influence our judgements, are these conscious emotions or do they operate at the level of our subterranean subconscious? Any honest answer to these questions would admit that non-rational factors always play a role. This is why it was wrong for Western media to vilify Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning at the US State Department, for naming racial discomfort as a factor at play in the emerging geopolitical contest between the United States and China.

Chinese and US flags are set up for a meeting in Beijing, China, 27 April 2018 (Photo: REUTERS/Jason Lee)

Skinner was correct in saying that ‘the Soviet Union and that competition, in a way it was a fight within the Western family’. Referring to the contest with China, she said: ‘it’s the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian’. That China is not Caucasian is a factor in the geopolitical contest and it may also explain strong emotional reactions in Western countries to China’s rise.

Take the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China as an example. Critics of China are rational and correct when they state that China has stolen intellectual property and occasionally bullied US firms into sharing their technology. But a calm, rational description of China’s behaviour would also add that such behaviour is normal for an emerging economy.

The United States also stole intellectual property, especially from the British, at a similar stage of its economic development. Equally important, when the United States agreed to admit China into the WTO as a ‘developing country’, it agreed that ‘under the WTO’s agreements on intellectual property, developed countries are under “the obligation” to provide incentives to their companies to transfer technology to less developed countries’. This is a point that Yukon Huang, a former World Bank economist, has pointed out.

Most Western portrayals of China’s emergence as a great power lack balance. They tend to highlight negative dimensions of China’s rise but omit the positive dimensions. When US Vice President Mike Pence gave a comprehensive speech on China on 4 October 2018, he said: ‘Over the past 17 years, China’s GDP has grown nine-fold; it’s become the second-largest economy in the world. Much of this success was driven by American investment in China’. This is a factually incorrect statement. China’s economic success has been primarily driven by the rejuvenation of the Chinese people, not US investment.

Though Washington prides itself as a centre of calm and rational strategic thinking, such an unbalanced speech was not attacked in the liberal media. Instead, many cheered the US Vice President for attacking China.

This virulent anti-China atmosphere is reminiscent of the mid-1980s when Western media attacked Japan ferociously. The distrust of yellow-skinned people has resurfaced again. As former US ambassador Chas Freeman has observed: ‘In their views of China, many Americans now appear subconsciously to have combined images of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Japan’s unnerving 1980s challenge to US industrial and financial primacy, and a sense of existential threat analogous to the Sinophobia that inspired the Anti-Coolie and Chinese Exclusion Acts’.

The people of the United States need to question how much of their reactions to China’s rise result from hard-headed rational analysis and how much are a result of deep discomforts with a non-Caucasian civilisation. We may never know the real answer as these titanic struggles between reason and emotion are probably playing out in deep subconscious terrains. Still, we should thank Kiron Skinner for alluding to the fact that such subconscious dimensions are at play here. The time has come for an honest discussion of the ‘yellow peril’ dimension in US–China relations. As Freud taught us, the best way to deal with our subconscious fears is to surface them and deal with them.

Kishore Mahbubani is a Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the author of ‘Has the West Lost It?’

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2019/06/05/a-yellow-peril-revival-fuelling-western-fears-of-chinas-rise/