History Repeats
As a military historian I would like to commence with a grim reminder. The Second World War began with a staged incident on the Polish frontier in 1939. The Nazis staged an attack on their own post at Dresden and used it as a pretext to attack Poland. Very similarly, the Japanese Army had staged an incident at Mukden on the Manchurian front and used it as the pretext for invading China. So, will the Third World War possibly begin with a staged accident at a virology laboratory? The world has sufficient reason for immense outrage. 171 million people have been infected globally and almost 3.7 million have been killed so far. An end of this mayhem is not in sight. The global economy has been hit to the tune of well over $2 trillion. The world has been hit much harder than it was in the Great Depression of the 1930s that preceded World War II. Economic devastation and ruin pave the way for world wars and large scale conflicts. Such devastation makes people desperate enough to choose war as an option.
Mao’s China had a combat-hardened army — the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that had fought non- stop for four decades. The present PLA is a far cry. It has not fought a war in 42 years. It had come out second best in its last war with Vietnam. Today, it is a conscript army of Princelings (single child families) that lacks the stomach for a head-on fight. Is that a consideration that could have impelled China to wage biological war instead? Or, was it a defensive mindset – a conviction that China had been the victim of biological attacks and, hence, was justified in retaliating in kind. The Chinese way of war has always laid emphasis on subduing the enemy without fighting. But, biological warfare is an insane option for not fighting the honourable way. Even a mass murderer like Hitler had refrained from using his biological weapons stockpile in the Second World War.
Chinese Military Interest in Bio Warfare
Back in 1999, I was serving in the Military Operations (MO) Directorate with Nuclear Chemical and Biological Warfare (NBC) as part of my charter. Our military attaché in USA sent us 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, currency manipulation and a host of other methods. 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 Sibu, 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. How then could China include bio-warfare in its official doctrine? 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 Air Force virologist, had led a team of 18 scientists and authored an exhaustive study on biological warfare. Their findings were presented to the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the highest leadership in China over 24 briefing 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 indicated a siege mentality — a deep seated Chinese perception that it was the victim of biological war. Ergo sum, China was fully justified in retaliating in kind. Such a Chinese mindset in itself is dangerous and has possibly precipitated the deliberate 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 Tzu’s 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 concrete steps to create this capability in a useable form. Consider the following:-
- There are two virology labs in Wuhan itself. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIF) lab was set up with French assistance as a level-4 facility. It is headed by two PLA general rank officers — Maj Gen Shi Zhengli (famed as China’s bat woman and world’s leading expert on bat corona viruses) and Maj Gen Cao Wei (who had served in Africa and dealt with MERS and Ebola epidemics). The very fact that China’s virology labs are headed by military officers indicates the military dimension of their programmes. A Chinese virologist claims that most of this research was carried out at the second lab which is level-2 or 3 facility with high chances of leakage.
- The trail goes back to 2012 when six Chinese miners went to clean a disused copper mine at Moijang in Yunan province and fell sick with pneumonia with lung patches similar to Covid. Gen Sheng Li rushed teams there and collected 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 RaTG 13 which has 96.2% match with the genome sequence of Covid-19 virus).
- In 2015, Gen Shi Zhengli had written four papers on how the SARS hook virus could be spliced on to this bat corona backbone to make it a highly lethal and communicable virus as part of gain-of-function research.
- 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 November 2015, this souped up virus was ready in the WIF. This research continued through 2016-17. In 2018, 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 Zhengli’s four papers were suddenly taken off the net. The whole programme was suddenly made quite opaque – after Sep 2019 it went under complete warps.
- A recent study by a UK and Norway-based duo of micro biologists named 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 (RaTG 13). 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 away – it 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 and Yunan some 550 kms away. As stated in 2012, six miners trying to clear a Yunan disued copper mine of bat feces fell sick with a penumonia with lung patches remarkably similar to Covid. Next year, Gen Shengli sent a team to collect bat corona samples from there to soup it up. In November 2019, three operatives of WIV 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 just four months. MERS came to man from bats via camels to humans. This link was discovered in just eight months. It has been over 18 months since the Covid pandemic hit China, until 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 which could end up as motivation for justifying striking back in kind. We find that in 2015 itself energetic steps were being taken in WIV to weaponise the bat corona virus isolated from the defunct copper mine. This gain-of-function virus was ready by November 2015 and China was ready to strike back! Dr Shi Zhengli has since been honoured by the Chinese CCP. The updated edition of the official PLA doctrine in 2017 had a whole new chapter on biological warfare. Bio war was now the official doctrine of the 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 by 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 put 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 corona virus 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, however, was acknowledged only on 8 Dec 2019. Thereafter, starts a deliberate trail of obfuscation and deliberate suppression of information. Chinese whistle blower doctors and researchers were killed or jailed. Even in late Dec 2019, 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 kms away and Shanghai, just 800 kms away, were unscathed. However, 25 flights a day from Wuhan to New York and similar number to Europe and other destinations were allowed to continue unchecked.
On 20 Jan 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 2020, 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 possible to spread the Corona virus and weaponise its release.
Accident or Staged Accident?
We now come across a strange coincidence. By 8 Dec 2019, the first Covid patient had been acknowledged in Wuhan. On 28 Dec 19 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 very provocative 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 aircraft carrier and became dangerously provocative, especially with its Air Force incursions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ). In end Mar- Apr 2020, China staged forward two mechanized divisions from Xinjiang and started incursions against India in Ladakh. Does a country surprised suddenly by a pandemic start war-like moves against all its neighbours concurrently? Or does it hunker down to protect its population and deal with the pandemic? 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 as a Pearl Harbour. As stated, in World War II, Japan and Germany had started invasions of China and Poland with staged incidents. That leads to the uncomfortable question – was the Wuhan accidental release, a staged accident? 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 China’s fear psychosis, it could well have been a “staged accident.” Such actions stem from perceptions and China’s clear perception since 2015 has been that it has already been attacked by biological weapons — retaliation is, therefore, justified in the Chinese mind-set.
Lies in Lancet
When the Covid pandemic erupted, 27 top virologists got together and wrote an article in the prestigious Lancet journal (19 Feb 2020), 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 judgement 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. 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 defence of China in Lancet, was Peter Daszak, head of the NGO – Eco Health Alliance. He had a serious conflict of interest, which should have disqualified him from commenting on issues pertaining to the WIV. it turns out that during President Obama’s tenure, gain-of-function research was being undertaken in some virology labs in the 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 three years (2014- 17). It was then that Dr Fauci of the NIH decided to offload all such research to foreign countries through NGOs. As part of this, $3.4 million was given to Peter Dasazk’s Eco Health Organisation. He, along with the Chinese 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 Mar 2021 WHO report.
The lid was blown off this cover up really by Nicholas Wade’s meticulously researched article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, one of the most prestigious scientific journals. He pointed out how Maj Gen Shi Zhengli, 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 Baric’s help, she had been able to splice a SARS hook molecule on to the backbone of a bat carona virus so that it would now attach on to the cells of human airways in November 2015 itself.
Where do we go from here?
The key question now is what does the world do with China? The losses suffered are too horrendous to be shrugged off as business as usual. Human lives matter a great deal and 3.7 million dead amounts to genocide.
- There is, unfortunately, a sadly capitulationist mindset, that the world can do nothing to China, so let sleeping dogs lie. I would contest that strongly. Philippines had taken China to the international Court of Justice (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 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the world’s 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 virology labs in all countries.
The world cannot afford to let China get away scot free on Covid. 171 million people have been infected and 3.7 million are dead. Over 300,000 citizens have died in India itself. China and other nations (including Pakistan) will have to be deterred if such mayhem has to be stopped. The world needs to get together and name and shame China as the first step. Concerted multi-domain pressure is called for to deter China in a credible fashion. We need to put in place major economic costs and sanctions. The global supply chains will have to be re-worked. The aim would be to deter China or any other nation from routinely employing biological warfare as a first resort option for waging mass casualty disruptive strikes. The world simply cannot accept this scenario.
