PROPAGANDA: Chinese Government Spokesman Suggests US Military Planted Virus in Wuhan
Jose Nino
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A Chinese official is peddling a conspiracy theory that the U.S. Army may have planted the deadly Wuhan Flu in China, without providing any evidence for his bold claim.
Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesman, pushed this theory on Twitter on Thursday, March 12, 2020. This statement mirrors similar conspiracy theories being spread on Chinese social media that blame the United States for the pandemic.
Just take a few minutes to read one more article. This is so astonishing that it changed many things I used to believe in. Please retweet to let more people know about it. https://t.co/jprOhxlYE9
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 13, 2020
The head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that the source of the virus was wild animals sold at a market in the city of Wuhan.
However, in recent days, Chinese officials and a leading health expert have asserted that the virus may have had a different point of origin as the Chinese government has criticized US officials for dubbing the disease the “Wuhan virus”.
Zhao tweeted a video of the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention giving a testimony before Congress detailing how some Americans who allegedly died from the flu were posthumously diagnosed with the Wuhan Flu.
1/2 CDC Director Robert Redfield admitted some Americans who seemingly died from influenza were tested positive for novel #coronavirus in the posthumous diagnosis, during the House Oversight Committee Wednesday. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/vYNZRFPWo3
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 12, 2020
“CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals?” Zhao tweeted.
“It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”
Chinese officials have faced accusations of attempting to cover up the outbreak as police in Wuhan cracked down on and silenced doctors who had voiced concerns about the virus as early as December.
American officials have ticked off China by associating the virus with the country. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called it the “Wuhan virus”.
The foreign ministry has repudiated the term and believes it is “despicable” and “disrespecting science”.
US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien asserted on Wednesday that the origin of the virus was China.
“This virus did not originate in the United States, it originated in Wuhan,” O’Brien said while giving a speech at the Heritage Foundation think tank.
“Unfortunately, rather than using best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up,” he sustained.
He argued that China had “cost the world community two months to respond” to the epidemic, which has now claimed the lives of 5,000 people and infected more than 130,000 across the globe.
If China had been more cooperative and allowed foreign experts to enter the country, he maintained, “we could have dramatically curtailed what happened both in China and what is now happening across the world”.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang described O’Brien’s remarks as “extremely immoral and also irresponsible” on Thursday. He claimed that China’s strict quarantine measures to keep a lid on the virus had won the world “hard-won precious time”.
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