“We have the manufacturing record for ventilators. We have the most and the finest testing anywhere in the world. We are producing gowns, masks, and surgical equipment in our country…It was almost exclusively made in foreign lands, in particular, China, where ironically this virus and others came from,” he said in his address from the lawns of the White House.

“China’s secrecy, deception, and cover-up allowed it to spread all over the world, 189 countries and China must be held fully accountable,” he said, once again accusing Beijing of covering up the outbreak of the pandemic. On Friday, Trump made a direct appeal to disaffected white voters four months before Election Day, accusing protesters who have pushed for racial justice of engaging in a “merciless campaign to wipe out our history.” Praising America’s “scientific brilliance”, Trump said on Saturday that the US will likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year.

Trump has expressed disappointment over China’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the past. In May, he claimed that it was the “incompetence” of Beijing that led to the mass killing across the globe.

China has denied US’ claim of “covering up” the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and has accused the US of attempting to divert public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a virology laboratory in Wuhan.

“China was the first country to report the Covid-19 to the World Health Organisation (WHO), (and) that doesn’t mean the virus originated from Wuhan… There has never been any concealment, and we’ll never allow any concealment,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in April.

The novel coronavirus which first originated in Wuhan in December last year has claimed over 5 lakh lives and infected more than 11 million people globally. The US is the worst affected country with over 1.2 lakh deaths and over 2.8 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

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He wrote that he was responding to comments by his trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who has been at the forefront of trade war negotiations with Beijing.
Lighthizer told a congressional committee on Wednesday that China so far has been living up to the terms of a “phase one” agreement that eased the dispute, but that decoupling the two economic giants was now impossible.
“That was a policy option years ago, but I don’t think it’s a policy or reasonable policy option at this point,” Lighthizer said.
Lighthizer described himself as a hardliner on China policy, and outlined the Trump administration’s plans to “reset” the World Trade Organization, largely so that it can better rein in Beijing’s policies which he says run afoul of free trade rules.
But his admission that the world’s two largest economies are inextricably linked, despite Trump’s aggressive campaign to push American firms to relocate production to the United States, caused some angst in Republican circles.
Trump tried to let his trade official off the hook.
“It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault (yesterday in Committee) in that perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.”
Trump in January signed the “phase one” of a trade deal aimed at ending a trade war in which he has slapped tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese products.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that a senior Chinese official also confirmed to him Beijing’s commitment to phase one, which includes China stepping up purchases of US products.
Pompeo met Wednesday in Hawaii with Yang Jiechi, a veteran maker of Chinese foreign policy, in Hawaii to discuss soaring tensions.
Besides trade, the United States has sharply criticized China over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, an upcoming security law in Hong Kong and its mass detention of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims.
Senior US diplomat David Stilwell, who accompanied Pompeo, said the United States insisted on a “more reciprocal” relationship but declined to discuss the discussions in depth.
“Whether or not they were productive or not, I will look at what comes up in the next couple of weeks. You’ll see a reduction in aggressive behavior or not,” Stilwell told reporters.
“If they come to the table with a reasonable proposal, the US is obviously going to treat it reasonably and look for ways to work toward a positive outcome.”

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China

Patient Zero, it now turns out was not found on 8 December 2019, but a month earlier. Media reports indicate Hwang Yangling, a researcher working on Bat Corona Viruses in the Wuhan Institute of Virology had contracted Covid in November 2019 itself. This was precisely where Dr Shi Zheng Li was working on splicing the SARS hook or S-protein on to the novel bat coronaviruses. It now turns out that no bats were ever sold in the infamous Wuhan wet markets. That put paid to the Zoonotic theory of this being a natural pandemic. The bats that caused it were in fact the horse-shoe bat species. There is no colony of horse-shoe bats within 600 kms of Wuhan!

These bats were specifically caught and brought to the Wuhan Instiute of Virology for research. The spike proteins of the natural chain of bat-borne coronavirus does not infect humans. Their coronaviruses were genetically re-engineered with the pathogenic S-spike protein from the SARS virus. American virologist Judy Milkovits’ asserts that this did not occur due to natural mutation but was deliberately engineered in the Wuhan Institute of Virology labs by splicing the SARS S-protein on to this virus. The Covid-19 strain was, thus, genetically engineered in the said laboratory.

The Zoonotic Theory of the natural origins of this pandemic in the Wuhan wet markets stands discredited. There is now another startling piece of news. On 21 January 2020, Dr Shi Zheng Li’s Wuhan laboratory had filed a use patent for Remdesivir – an American medicine for Ebola virus as a highly effective treatment for Covid-19. This patent could have only been filed after extensive testing for at least a month or at the very least 10 days, so by start of January 2020, the Chinese were quite clear about the nature of the coronavirus and had a fairly effective line of treatment in Remdesivir. Let us now correlate this timeline with China’s military activities and posturing in recent months.

Eastern Seaboard

The highly reputed American analyst Anthony Cordesman has put out a chronology of Chinese military provocations since December 2019/ January 2020. At that time, the Americans were concerned about China’s rising aggression in the South China Sea (SCS) and Taiwan Strait and had carried out a series of Freedom of Navigation patrols in this region. China went out of the way to flex muscles in this region. It is important to note the chronology of events to discern underlying motivations and intentions and cause–effect connectivity.

Thus, the Chinese PLAN and PLAAF have displayed very high levels of aggression in the East and South China Sea, right from January 20 when the Covid-19 virus was flaring in Wuhan. Was this just defensive brow-beating or offensive intent to exploit a biological weapon release? In Remdesvir did they think they had a cure? They have mounted considerable coercive pressure on Taiwan by non-stop aggressive manoeuevres and combat drills. This appears to be China’s main strategic direction. It is being speculated that China may attempt to attack and capture Taiwan before the 100th Anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2021. These non-stop exercises are, perhaps, designed to desensitize the target and gain surprise. It is rumoured that North Korea could, in tandem, attack South Korea and Pakistan could launch attacks in Jammu & Kashmir to divert global attention.

Pakistan in Collusion

What is cause for concern and consternation is that China is flexing its military muscles not just in the East China Sea, SCS and Taiwan, but also against India in Eastern Ladakh and North Sikkim. Ladakh is the only area where physical collusion can take place between Chinese and Pakistani forces. Pakistan has illegally ceded the Shaksgam Valley to China and invited Chinese troops into Gilgit-Baltistan for construction of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.

Pakistan was in a fairly subdued mood after the Indian Air Force (IAF) hit Balakot in retaliation to the Pulwama attack in February 2019. In fact, even when Article 370 was abrogated in August 2019, Pakistan did nothing – it was so cowed down. Suddenly it all changed from January 2020. Pakistan violated the ceasefire 1,300 times to push up terrorist infiltration. It mounted a series of terror attacks in Handwara and killed over 18 Indian security personnel in April 2020 alone. In May 2020, Pakistan attempted a repeat of Pulwama with a 40 kg IED. Fortunately, the plot was foiled.

What has emboldened Pakistan to so dramatically up the ante? Obviously, it has received some Chinese assurances of support. Meanwhile, Pakistan had pushed in some 5,000 to 6,000 Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists into Afghanistan in a virtual endgame to annex Kabul with the help of the Taliban and proclaim itself the regional superpower which has defeated America.

Chinese Moves

China’s deliberate and continual ambiguity about the exact alignment of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) enables it to mount pressure on India at will, at a place and time of its choosing. The Chinese had established the Western Theatre Command (combining the erstwhile Military Regions of Chengdu and Lanzhou) on 1 February 2016. It’s first Theatre Commander Gen Zhou Zhongqui was one of its last senior commanders with combat experience in Vietnam (as a Captain). He was a Tibet specialist and had served non-stop for 20 years in this region. The Chinese had fully exploited the Peace & Tranquility Accord signed in 1993 to develop first class rail and road infrastructure in Tibet.

When India tried to catch up belatedly in the 21st Century, China began its process of dissuasion and disruption. So far the Indian deployment was purely defensive. With the raising of India’s 17 Strike Corps, it was developing the capability to hit back and retaliate by effective ripostes. We had sat back and let the Chinese build roads designed to support major offensives in Tibet. China, however, would do its best to disrupt our efforts at infrastructure creation. So from 2013 onwards, we began to see annual standoffs. The most serious ones came in Depsang in 2013; Chumar in 2014 and Doklam in 2017.

Current Events

In March 2020, there were a few cases of Covid-19 in Ladakh, including some amongst the Army ranks. As a result the annual formation-level exercises and operational alert were put off. These were timed to coincide with the PLA exercises in Tibet and Xinjiang around the same time. Even the Chinese exercises were postponed by a month. But by April, the Chinese sprang a surprise.

In hindsight it is quite clear that it was a deliberately planned move by the Western Theatre Command with the General Staff and higher ups in Beijing fully on board. Instead of escalating at one single point, the Chinese this year chose four – three in Ladakh and one in North Sikkim. A Chinese brigade exercising opposite Ladakh was suddenly moved into the Galwan Sector. To achieve surprise and deception, it came in heavy civil trucks which were bringing construction material for the two airfields that were opposite this sector.

Darbuk-Shyok–DBO Road

The Chinese brigade swiftly moved in some 3 kms beyond the LAC into the Indian side in the Galwan Sector – just opposite the area where the Shyok and Galwan rivers meet and 5 kms from LAC. In a virtual Kargil redux – they seized the heights that overlook the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) road axis and (in the Chinese perception) could pose a threat to the Aksai Chin Road (the Tibet-Xinjiang Highway NH-219). Surprisingly there was no ambiguity in the LAC alignment in this sector. A brigade (minus) built up on these heights with one of its battalions in reserve.

There are reports that the Chinese were concerned about a perceived threat from our Sub Sector North (SSN). Some 15 years back a Chinese military wargame had visualized a Division-sized Indian force along with mechanized elements that would strike into the Aksai Chin plateau. SSN has always been a vulnerable area for India. In 2007, India had commenced construction of two roads here:

Sosoma-Saser La Road. This is a summer road as Saser La is closed by heavy snow during winters and would need a tunnel to make it all-weather.

Darbuk-Shyok-DBO Road. This 255 km road was constructed along the bed of the Shyok River valley. It runs parallel to the LAC up to Murgo. The junction of Shyok and Galwan rivers is only 5 kms from the LAC. The trouble began when the Indians began to construct a spur road into the Galwan river valley, which is technically Indian territory. This seems to have alarmed the Chinese.

 The Chinese have come in brigade strength each in the Galwan Sector and north of Pangong Tso Lake in the 4 to 8 Fingers area. Lt Gen HS Panag (former Northern Army Commander ) feels that the Chinese occupied some 8.40 kms of our territory on the ridge that overlooks the road. Forward deployments so far are in tented camps (not really designed to fight) with big trucks parked alongside. But in depth areas they are building bunkers and have brought in artillery and mechanized forces. The third intrusion point in Ladakh is the Hotsprings Area (Chang Chenmo River valley) and Demchok.

 Indian Response

India reacted swiftly and matched the Chinese man-to-man in the intrusion areas. There were media reports of deployment of medium artillery (Bofors) and an armoured regiment as a precaution. On 5 & 8 May 2020, serious scuffles broke out between the Indian and Chinese troops in the Pangong Tso Lake area and then in North Sikkim. However, so far, since 1967, there has been no major kinetic action on the Chinese front. There have only been fist-cuffs and scuffles.

This time the Chinese used iron rods, sticks and pelted stones, injuring some of our boys. Our boys retaliated in even measure. The Chinese even used sticks wound with barbed wire to cause bad injuries. However, that said, till date no shot has been fired from either side. The first shot fired will, however, radically alter the scenario.

Most of the forward deployments are for posturing purposes and as yet no indication has been received of troops digging in for a set-piece operation. Noting India’s very strong and proportionate response, the Chinese seemed to be having second thoughts. The Chinese ambassador to India, Sun Weidong made conciliatory statements about resolving the standoff peacefully. A number of meetings between local military commanders have failed to resolve the deadlock. On 6 June 2020, a meeting at corps commander level took place between Lt Gen Harinder Singh GOC 14 Corps and Maj Gen Liu Lin of the Xinjiang Military Command. Some preliminary signs of easing off were reported by the media in Galwan sector. However, both sides are sticking to their base positions. India wants restoration of status quo ante to Apr 20 positions. Both India and China have politely turned down US President Trump’s offer to mediate.

Analysis

So what are China’s possible aims and objectives for this very deliberately orchestrated flare up in Ladakh? These could be as follows:

•             Grand Strategic Level. Warn India to desist from aligning too closely with America in the Second Cold War and taking advantage of China’s economic problems by hosting foreign industries moving out of China. Whip up nationalism internally and divert attention from growing internal and external unpopularity of the CCP regime.

•             Theatre Level. Deter India from altering the existing status quo in J&K by any attempts to take Gilgit-Baltistan (through which the CPEC passes), POK or Aksai Chin (to cut the Chinese NH 219 linking Xinjiang with Tibet).

•             Collusive Support to Pakistan. Bolster up Pakistan, which has been cowed down due to Balakot air strikes in which China did nothing and encourage it to destabilize J&K through Intensified asymmetric warfare. Instigate Nepal to turn hostile towards India.

India’s Options

There is no point in constructing a road axis that cannot be secured. This cannot be done with fist-cuffs and hand-to-hand scuffles. We must revert to standard military tactical procedures. Continued ambiguity is dangerous. So what are the options?

•             Get the Chinese to withdraw through military/diplomatic level talks. We will have to clearly define our red lines. The Chinese strategic military doctrine calls for focusing on one single strategic direction at a time, ie, toward Taiwan and SCS, presently. Does china want a second front opened against India? I doubt that. China will go only so far to support Pakistan. The tail cannot be allowed to wag the dog.

               Failing this, the options are:-

• Diplomacy. Get the Chinese to withdraw through a combination of military talks and diplomacy. Chinese strategic culture abhors a two front situation. We should exploit this aspect to get it to back down. China will not go beyond a point to support a pariah state like Pakistan. The tail cannot be allowed to wag the dog. Lt Gen level talks were left on 6 June. 

• Kinetic Action. Kinetic military action to remove the threat to our vital road artery entails minimum a two division sized operation backed by heavy artillery, airpower and mechanized forces. This implies a local war of Kargil level intensity and more. If either side loses face it could escalate dangerously. Would India want that? For that matter, would China? The Chinese Army has not seen a shooting war in the last 42 years and is a peacetime army more used to posturing than live combat.  Xi Jinping has pointedly asked the PLA to shed it’s peacetime sickness. It is not 1962 and the boot may well be on the other foot now. Armies that go to combat after a long gap do get their share of initial shocks. 

• Counter Ingress. An indirect approach to avoid an escalatory counter-attack is to counter ingress in areas of ambiguity and gain bargaining chips for trade-offs of territory. 

• Taiwan and Tibet Cards. If China continues to provoke and destabilize via Pakistan and Nepal (and now Maldives), India must play the Taiwan and Tibet cards. It takes two to tango. If China will not head our sensitivities in our own backyard there is no reason for India to be over concerned about China’s proclaimed red lines. We must firmly lay down ours and not be over-anxious to please.

• Alignment Architecture. Non-Alignment is not likely to work in Cold War 2.0. We will be forced to choose sides and seeing the way China is trying to hurt us, our choices are obvious. We may as well go the whole hog now. There is a vital need to upgrade and give teeth to our strategic partnerships with USA, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia. We must enhance the military technical component of this quasi alliance architecture. Quad is the way to go – an alignment of liberal democracies against an aggressive totalitarian state makes sense. 

Chronology of Aggressive Behaviour in Taiwan Strait

Taiwan Straits

December 2019. China’s first wholly indigenous aircraft carrier Shandong (CV-17) was commissioned at the Sanya Naval Base in the SCS.

26 December 2019. Shandong sailed through the Taiwan Strait as part of its sea trials and weapons testing.

6 January 2020. In retaliation, US guided missile cruiser, USS Shellog sailed through Taiwan Strait.

11 Jan 2020. President Tsai was re- elected in Taiwan for a second term.

21 January 2020. Swarms of Chinese Su-30 and Y-8 aircrafts flew from the airfields in Southern China and passed through Bashi Channel in a major show of force.

23 January 2020. Another show of force exercise by PLA Air Force (PLAAF) in the Bashi Channel.

9-10 February 2020. Massive PLA Navy (PLAN) and PLAAF joint drills in waters south of Taiwan. This was timed to coincide with the visit of Taiwan’s President elect to the USA. J-11 fighters , Hong-6 bombers and KJ-500 AWACs were employed.

9 February 2020. Hong-6 bombers of PLAAF carried out long distance training flight. Crossed the centre line in the Taiwan Strait, forcing Taiwan to scramble F-16 jet fighters. Chinese bombers circumambulated Taiwan – flying from Bashi Channel into West Pacific Ocean and back via Miyako Strait.

12 February 2020. In response, the USAF flew B-52 bombers and C-130 Transport aircraft along Taiwan’s east coast.

13 February 2020. A US Navy guided missile cruiser sailed through Taiwan Strait.

17 February 2020. A US Navy P-8 maritime recce aircraft laser painted by a PLAN destroyer.

28 February 2020. PLAAF Hong-6 bomber again circumambulated Taiwan via Bashi Channel.

8-9 March 2020. The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) made a port visit to Da Nang in Vietnam. The crew was infected by coronavirus and the ship was rendered non-effective and forced into quarantine in Guam since 27 March 2020.

The US aircraft carrier US Ronald Reagan also affected by Covid-19 was forced into quarantine till 4 May 2020 at the Yokosaka Harbour in Japan.

16 March 2020. PLAAF mounted large scale night-time sorties over the sea south west of Taiwan.

26 March 2020. US Navy guided missile destroyer Mc Campbell transited Taiwan Strait.

2 April 2020. Chinese Navy Coast Guard ships sank a Vietnamese fishing boat near Paracel islands. Arrested two tugs that were sent for rescue.

6 April 2020. PLAN held major sea exercise in SCS.

10 April 2020. US Navy guided missile destroyer passed through Taiwan Strait.

21 April 2020. Worried about both of its aircraft carriers (USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Ronald Reagan) being out of action, the US Navy sent amphibious assault ship USS America with 13 F-35 VTOL fighters on board along with a guided missile cruiser and destroyer to the waters off Malaysia. Chinese survey ships and coast guard vessels were trying to hound a Malaysian oil exploration ship there.

22 April 2020. US guided missile destroyer sailed through Taiwan Strait.

28 April 2020. PLAF and PLAN began to track and posture against USS guided missile destroyer in SCS.

29 April 2020. Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning Battle Group (with two guided missile destroyers, two frigates and a support ship) sailed from Daren via East China Sea to Miyako Strait, south of Taiwan.

2 June 2020. China announced a major 70-day long amphibious landing exercise on Hainan Island in the South China Sea – warned shipping to stay clear of Bashi Strait.

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This is the largest exercise since national airline Air India flew back 1,70,000 during the first Gulf War from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War. It was followed by the evacuation of 1764 Indians from Lebanon in 2006 and more than 5600 Indians from Yemen during the civil war that raged there in 2015.

An operation of this magnitude was also the most comprehensive evacuation ever attempted and at a difficult operating time when an unpredictable, dangerous and invisible enemy like the coronavirus was lurking everywhere.

India banned all flights in late March as it imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns to check Covid-19 cases, leaving thousands of workers and students stranded. Till now, the government had resisted evacuations, given the logistical and safety nightmare of bringing back and quarantining returning citizens.

Detailed instructions were issued by the government on the categories of people who were to be given precedence, medical screening of passengers, the procedure on reaching the destination,  protocols, the infrastructure to be put in place.

Evacuation by Air

National carrier Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express ran special ferry flights from New Delhi, Kochi and Kozhikode to Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively. The two airlines operated 64 flights in seven days to bring back 14,800 stranded Indians from 12 countries.

Three decades ago, Air India led a group of airlines which included Indian Airlines and Aeroflot as well as IAF to rescue an estimated 111,711 Indians from the Gulf, after Iraq invaded Kuwait in the year 1990. The 59-day operation involved 488 flights and was conducted before the first Gulf war. This time, the exercise encompassed flights to the US in the West to Philippines in the East.

The Indian Air Force prepared about 30 aircraft, including C-17 Globemaster and C-130J Super Hercules for the mission.

Role of the Indian Navy

The Indian Navy said, on 5 May, that it had launched Operation Samudra Setu (sea bridge), as part of the national effort to repatriate Indian citizens from overseas. Indian Naval Ship (INS) Jalashwa and INS Magar were sent to Malè, Maldives to commence evacuation operations from May 8 as part of Phase-1.

The Indian Navy had previously carried out evacuation efforts in conflict-hit areas like Lebanon (2006) and Yemen (2015). However, a potential operation in the Gulf will not only be larger in scale, but it would have to keep in mind social distancing norms.

INS Jalaswa. The ships were suitably provisioned for the evacuation operation. INS Jalashwa is the Navy’s Landing Platform Dock (LPD) and has a capacity to generate 60,000 gallons (212 tonnes) of fresh water a day, around 3MW of electrical power and has extensive medical facilities. Weighing over 16,400 tonnes, it is also the second-largest combat warship in the Indian Navy after the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. It is capable of carrying tanks and can carry up to 1,000 soldiers. Since her commissioning in 2007, INS Jalashwa has proved to be indispensable and an extremely valuable acquisition for the navy. The ship has played major roles in amphibious operations, strategic sealift and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions. The Navy suitably modified INS Jalashwa by removing non-essential equipment in order to accommodate evacuees. The ship was provided relief and coronavirus protection material as well as medical and administrative support staff.  It set sail from Male to Kochi on 8 May with 750 persons.

INS Magar. INS Magar, also an amphibious ship, can carry armoured personnel carriers for transportation and tanks to target beaches. The Magar-class ships weigh about 5,500 tonnes. The ship can also carry 500 fully laden troops for nearly 10 days, in addition to her own crew.  The ship was zoned to prevent intermingling of the crew with the evacuees.

INS Airavat and INS Shardul also headed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for evacuation and were in addition to the civilian aircraft sent.

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From Srinagar to Thiruvananthapuram and Dibrugarh to Kachchh, the Army carried out various activities like laying wreath at the police memorials, honouring and felicitating health professions and emergency supply operatives. Visits to hospitals were carried out over hundreds of towns in all states from the local army formations all over the nation in small and big numbers by army teams along with military bands which played patriotic tunes as a tribute to the nation’s frontline warriors against coronavirus.

Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Agra, Amritsar, Belgaum, Ranikhet Pithoragarh among many metropolis, big and small townships saw the Army, Navy and IAF and Coast Guard (ICG) visiting hospitals and paying tributes. The activities started with laying wreaths at the local police memorials, an event which is truly unprecedented and brings the forces closer to their uniformed brethren. Whole country and all countrymen enjoyed this rich salute and poured wishes and love to the armed forces over social media.

The Armed Forces also organised multiple other events like fly past by fighter and transport aircrafts of the IAF throughout the length and breadth of the country. The helicopters of IAF, Indian Navy and ICG showered flower petals on the hospitals treating COVID patients. Army and IAF bands visited COVID hospitals and played tunes in an expression of gratitude to the Corona Warriors.

Fighter aircraft formations, comprising of the Sukhoi-30 MKI, MiG-29 and Jaguar fly past over Rajpath and orbited over Delhi visible to the residents from their roof tops. In addition, C-130J Hercules transport aircraft also flew over Delhi.

The Navy and ICG ships formed formations near shores at select locations. Ships were illuminated at 25 locations covering the entire coastline of the country including the remote sites and far flung island territories of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Minicoy islands.

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The Chinese government initially mishandled the new coronavirus epidemic. Local authorities in Wuhan – the epicentre of the outbreak – concealed critical information from the public even after medical professionals sounded the alarm. Dr Li Wenliang, who was among the first to warn Chinese authorities about the danger of COVID-19, in late December, was subsequently interrogated and silenced by local police. He died of the illness on February 7.

The crisis also showed how tenuous the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over information has become and highlighted the latent power of Chinese civil society.

Mishandling of the Crisis

The number of grieving relatives has swelled. Ordinary residents have complained of being turned away from multiple hospitals. The Chinese authorities are clamping down as grieving relatives, along with activists, press the ruling Communist Party for an accounting of what went wrong in Wuhan.

Lawyers were warned not to file suits against the government. The police interrogated bereaved family members, who connected with others like them online. Volunteers who tried to thwart the state’s censorship apparatus by preserving reports about the outbreak disappeared.

Some aggrieved residents pressed ahead despite the government clampdown. Tan Jun, a civil servant in Yichang, a city in Hubei Province, became the first person to publicly attempt to sue the authorities over their response to the outbreak. With China’s judiciary tightly controlled by the central government, it was unclear whether Tan would get his day in court.

The crackdown underscores the party’s fear that any attempt to dwell on what happened in Wuhan, or to hold officials responsible, will undermine the state’s narrative that only China’s authoritarian system saved the country from a devastating health crisis.

Public Criticism

There has also been a spate or writings against Xi. Chinese realty tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, an outspoken maverick and former chief of Beijing Huayuan Group, a state-owned developer, wrote an opinion piece crucifying the top leader. Ren called Xi a “clown” and likened him to the emperor in the famous story by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. Ren was held at a secret prison in a suburb in Beijing and that he may be locked up for no less than 15 years as he has been a recidivist, relentlessly attacking Xi.

There was another open letter circulating suggesting convening an extraordinary plenum of the Politburo to reflect on “Xi’s wrongs” since taking office and decide if he should step down as president, party chief and commander of the military. Chen Ping, a publisher and founder of the Hong Kong-based SunTV network, shared it on WeChat, according to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Radio Taiwan International.

Zhang Xuezhong, the constitutional scholar was taken away on 12 May after posting an open letter calling for political reform in China, was allowed to return home after questioning by the authorities.

Strongman in Charge

Under Xi, correcting policy mistakes has proved to be difficult, since reversing decisions made personally by the strongman would undercut his image of infallibility. Xi’s demand for loyalty has also stifled debate and deterred dissent within the CCP.

For these reasons, the party lacks the flexibility needed to avoid and reverse future missteps in its confrontation with the United States. The result is likely to be growing disunity within the regime. It is nearly impossible to remove a strongman in a one-party regime because of his tight control over the military and the security forces. In the years ahead, Xi may come to rely on purges more than he already does, further heightening tensions and distrust among the ruling elites.

The Dangers of Slower Growth

By cutting China off from the United States’ vast market and sophisticated technology, Washington can greatly reduce the potential growth of China’s power. Since the Chinese economy today is less dependent on exports as an engine of growth-exports in 2018 accounted for 19.5 percent of GDP, down from 32.6 percent in 2008 – decoupling may not depress China’s economic growth as much as its proponents have hoped. But as their standard of living stalls, middle-class Chinese may turn against the party.

As the economy weakens, the CCP may have to contend with the erosion of popular support resulting from a falling or stagnant standard of living. In the post-Mao era, the CCP has relied heavily on economic over performance to sustain its legitimacy. Generations born after the Cultural Revolution have experienced steadily rising living standards. A prolonged period of mediocre economic performance could severely reduce the level of popular support for the CCP, as ordinary Chinese grapple with rising unemployment and an inadequate social safety net.

 In such an adverse economic environment, signs of social unrest, such as riots, mass protests, and strikes, will become more common. The deepest threat to the regime’s stability will come from the Chinese middle class.

An economic slowdown would also disrupt the CCP’s patronage structure, the perks and favors that the government provides to cronies and collaborators. Should a dramatic slowdown occur, the Chinese government will most likely find itself confronting greater resistance in the country’s restive periphery, especially in Tibet and Xinjiang, which contain China’s most vocal ethnic minorities, and in Hong Kong, which was British territory until 1997 and retains a different system of governance with far more civil liberties.

Should the party resort to overly harsh responses to assert its control, as is likely to be the case, the country will incur international criticism and harsh new sanctions. The escalation of human rights violations in China would also help push Europe closer to the United States.

Patriotism as Shield

Recriminations from abroad, including calls to make China pay for the pandemic that began there, have triggered defensiveness on the part of many Chinese. As China tames the coronavirus epidemic now ravaging other countries, its success is giving rise to an increasingly strident blend of patriotism, nationalism and xenophobia, at a pitch many say has not been seen in decades. Xi will probably beat the drums of Chinese nationalism to counter the United States. But, Xi is unlikely to embrace this strategy. It runs against his deeply held ideological views.

Perhaps nowhere has xenophobia manifested itself more strongly than in Guangzhou, a manufacturing hub with a large African population. There are signs that the nationalism already threatens to create a backlash that could undermine China’s economic and diplomatic status.

Instead, Xi will probably beat the drums of Chinese nationalism to counter the United States. Ever since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests-which shook the party to its core and resulted in a government crackdown on dissent-the CCP has ceaselessly exploited nationalist sentiment to shore up its legitimacy. But nationalism could eventually make it harder for the party to switch to a more flexible strategy, since taking a vigorous anti-American stance will lock in conflict and constrain Beijing’s policy options. The party would then have to turn to social control and political repression.

Power Struggle

Mounting dissatisfaction within the regime could motivate senior members to organize a palace coup to replace Xi. The party, however, has adopted sophisticated coup-proofing techniques: the General Office of the Central Committee monitors communication among members of the committee, the only body that could conceivably remove Xi.

Another possible scenario is a crisis that creates a split among China’s top elites, which in turn paralyzes the regime’s fearsome repressive apparatus. But this scenario is unlikely to materialize, since the party has invested heavily in surveillance and information control and has developed effective methods to suppress mass protests.

The most likely scenario is a succession struggle that would occur if Xi were to pass away or resign owing to infirmity. End of strongman rule produces a weak interim leader. It is unlikely that Xi’s hard authoritarianism would survive the end of his rule.

In the best-case scenario, the party may succeed in transforming itself into a “kinder, gentler” regime, one that endorses economic and political reforms and seeks a geopolitical reconciliation with the United States.

In the worst-case scenario, deep institutional rot, inept leadership, and the mobilization of anti-regime movements could very well cause a hard landing.

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In the last seven years, that system has been dismantled and replaced by a qualitatively different regime-one marked by a high degree of ideological rigidity, punitive policies toward ethnic minorities and political dissenters at home, and an impulsive foreign policy embodied by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a trillion-dollar infrastructure program with dubious economic potential that has aroused intense suspicion in the West. The centralization of power under Xi has created new fragilities and has exposed the party to greater risks.

A brittleness and insecurity lies beneath the surface of Xi Jinping’s, and Beijing’s, assertions of solidity and strength. Although middle-class discontent, ethnic resistance, and pro-democracy protests will not force Xi out of power, such pervasive malaise would undoubtedly further erode his authority and cast doubts on his capacity to govern effectively.

The United States has limited means of influencing China’s closed political system, but the diplomatic, economic, and military pressure that Washington can bring to bear on Beijing will put Xi and the CCP he leads under enormous strain.

Chinese leaders have put considerable thought into the lessons of the Cold War and of the Soviet collapse. Ironically, Beijing may nevertheless be repeating some of the most consequential mistakes of the Soviet regime.

In 2018, Xi decided to abolish presidential term limits, signaling his intention to stay in power indefinitely. Since taking power in 2012, Xi has replaced collective leadership with strongman rule. He has indulged in heavy-handed purges, ousting prominent party officials under the guise of an anti-corruption drive.

China’s ruling elites maintained peace by sharing the spoils of governance. Such a regime was by no means perfect. Corruption was pervasive, and the government often delayed critical decisions and missed valuable opportunities. But the regime that preceded Xi’s centralization had one distinct advantage: a built-in propensity for pragmatism and caution.

Xi has suppressed protests in Hong Kong, arrested hundreds of human rights lawyers and activists, and imposed the tightest media censorship of the post-Mao era.  His government has constructed “reeducation” camps in Xinjiang, where it has incarcerated more than a million Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities.

And it has centralized economic and political decision-making, pouring government resources into state-owned enterprises and honing its surveillance technologies.

Yet all together, these measures have made the CCP weaker: the growth of state-owned enterprises distorts the economy, and surveillance fuels resistance. The spread of the novel coronavirus has only deepened the Chinese people’s dissatisfaction with their government.

If Xi continues on this trajectory, eroding the foundations of China’s economic and political power and monopolizing responsibility and control, he will expose the CCP to cataclysmic change.

The post PANDEMIC: China May Face Internal Backlash appeared first on IMR.

Covid-19 has been the most devastating Black Swan event in recent global memory. It has severely disrupted the global supply chains and will cause devastating levels of damage to the global economy. The patterns are obvious. A trade war had broken out between the USA and China prior to Covid-19 pandemic. Even as the bat-borne coronavirus was breaking out in Wuhan, a ceasefire of sorts was negotiated during the ongoing trade war. Trade negotiations were completed in December 19 and the deal was to be signed on 20 January when China deftly inserted a force majeure clause – that included an epidemic. China by then was well aware of the bat-borne novel coronavirus that had broken out in Wuhan. However, for reasons of national prestige (or otherwise), China was actively suppressing information of this dreaded epidemics outbreak.

While China enforced a strict lockdown in Wuhan and Hubei province, it kept its borders open and flights to USA and Europe and other countries continue unchecked. The epidemic spread widely by this unrestricted air travel and free local movement to neighbouring countries. In fact, the virus really came to light when Vietnam and other countries began to report cases. What has aroused great suspicion is the fact that even though countries located 12,000 miles away and more were severely hit – Beijing, the national capital (located just 1100 kms away) and Shanghai, the business capital (located a mere 830 kms away) – remained unscathed.

Initially, the consensus amongst experts was that it was a natural epidemic that had broken out from the wet markets of Wuhan, where the bat-borne coronavirus had made the leap from animals to humans. Then there was a chorus of accusations and innuendos that seemed to suggest that it was either an accidental release of a manmade coronavirus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wuhan lab) or even worse – a deliberate release. The first to make such accusation was Radio Free Asia (a CIA propaganda organ) and then The Washington Post that cited an Israeli bio-warfare expert, Dany Shoham stating that Wuhan city had two Chinese biological warfare facilities and insinuating the leak had occurred there. The accusations being made against China were two-fold:

•             The novel coronavirus was made in the Wuhan lab and had leaked from there.

•             China had deliberately suppressed information about the virus in the initial stages and, thereby, facilitated its spread. The World Health Organisation (WHO), under Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, toed the Chinese line. This delayed the global response, thereby, resulting in such massive casualties.

The Chinese Perspective

The trade war with the USA, the unrest in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and the US Government’s steps to strengthen relations with Taiwan had made the Chinese leadership fairly paranoid. They felt that the US was actively involved in destablising China and an aggressive response was called for. In these innuendoes and accusations it saw a sinister information warfare offensive. It retaliated with counter accusations that the US Army Special Forces had introduced this novel bat coronavirus in Wuhan during the October 2019 Army Games. Given the six weeks incubation period, patient zero was hospitalized in end-November 2019. It accused the USA of running three biological warfare facilities – one at Maryland, USA and one each in Lugan Centre Georgia and Kazakhstan (Research Institute for Bio Safety Problems) and demanded that these be shut down.

Military Moves

Military moves from both sides were underway in January 2020 itself. The USA had carried out missile firing tests in the South China Sea, sailed forward two aircraft carriers – USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Ronald Reagan. Astonishingly, their crews were infected by the novel coronavirus and soon their carriers were rendered hors de combat and were locked down in the ports of Guam and Yokohama. The coronavirus epidemic seemed to be raging there and media reports indicated withdrawal of several US warplanes and naval units from Guam, perhaps to safeguard them from the corona epidemic.

Meanwhile, the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) mounted large scale military exercises against Taiwan and in the South China Sea. Waves of fighters and bombers simulated attacks against Taiwan. China’s sole aircraft carrier Liaoning, along with two destroyers, two frigates and a support ship made a deep foray via the East China Sea and behind Taiwan to carry out provocative offensive manoeuevres. The PLAN and its associated ships sank a Vietnamese fishing boat in South China Sea and when two vessels were sent to save the crew, China arrested these ships. The USA was by then reeling under the virulent shock of the pandemic and China seemed to be spoiling for a fight at sea. Some felt it was trying to provoke a major incident to give itself an excuse to possibly mount an invasion operation against Taiwan. 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and there were media speculations that China was planning to integrate Taiwan by 2021 to show a stellar achievement of the CCP to the Chinese people and the world.

Given this scenario of aggressive Chinese military posturing against Taiwan when the world was reeling with the Covid pandemic, could China have possibly unleashed a Biological Pearl Harbour at Wuhan to cause disarray and disorganization in the USA and Europe prior to striking? There were media speculations that, in 2020-21, China would attack Taiwan and in tandem North Korea would attack South Korea. Also Pakistan would attack India in Kashmir to keep India wholly tied down in this conflict to celebrate the CCPs 100th anniversary in 2021.

It was a wild card scenario. Covid-19 ensured that all news about these major military moves off the Taiwan coast and in the South China Sea went largely under- reported. Whenever China has unleashed aggressive moves against Taiwan, the US Navy has responded by surging forward 4-5 of its aircraft carrier battle groups. These were surged forward again, but surprisingly two were rendered unfit for action due to Covid-19 infection of their crew. China in the meantime triumphantly paraded its sole aircraft carrier and escort ships in the Taiwan Straits. In the South China Sea it sank a Vietnamese fishing boat. Pakistan stepped up its aggressive behavior in J&K with over a 1,000 ceasefire violations, major infiltration attempts and three high profile attacks against the security forces. The new Chinese axis seemed to be displaying military triumphalism. Was that born out of a perceived success in a biological first strike? After all, Chinese military doctrines have quite openly been advocating the use of biological agents to ensure disarray in enemy ranks prior to any kinetic military action. At times, bringing an enemy to its knees without resort to any kinetic action has also been emphasized. These events cannot be seen in isolation and have to be analysed as parts of a composite picture.

How was China so well prepared for the Covid pandemic? How did its national and financial capitals remain unscathed? Had it been caught by surprise by the pandemic would its military be undertaking such aggressive and reckless manoeuvres at precisely the same time? What assurances have been given to Pakistan to so embolden it to start destabilizing J&K once again – despite the clear warning of Balakot?

America’s Recovery and Response

America was reeling under the bat coronavirus pandemic. Lakhs of its citizens were infected and over 50,000 had died. Initially, experts the world over gave a clean chit to China and stated it was a natural epidemic that had originated in the wet markets of Wuhan. As the infection curve seemed to flatten out in the USA, we increasingly began to hear more strident accusations from the USA. Very soon President Trump and Mike Pompeo were accusing China of being responsible for an accidental leak of a novel man-made coronavirus from its lab at Wuhan. The US was also accusing China of deliberately withholding and suppressing information in the critical initial stage that allowed the pandemic to spread globally and cause so much economic disruption and loss of life.

Chinese Military Doctrines and Capabilities

The 2017 edition of the PLA Science of Military Strategy added a new chapter on Biological Warfare titled “Biology as a Domain for Military Struggle”. This is an official doctrinal document and not views of individual retired officers. In 2010, we had a book from Guo Jiwei of PLA University “War for Power”, which outlined a concept of war with biological characteristics. In 2017 itself, Gen Zhang Shibo (former president Chinese National Defence University) wrote a book called “New Highland of War”. He talked of weaponisation of living organisms and offensive capability of biological warfare. (Monika Chansoria).

The world has outlawed biological warfare. In such a scenario it is unacceptable for a major and responsible power to publish official doctrines openly advocating biological warfare.

Both China and the USA have been actively creating biological warfare capabilities with special emphasis on novel bat coronavirus strains that spread with great rapidity. Both have accused each other of accidental leaks/deliberate biological attacks.

With so much of disinformation doing the rounds it is hard to determine the truth. The following is however pertinent:

•             Both the USA and China have been investing heavily in biological warfare capabilities despite the treaty banning biological warfare.

•             In 2018, a Joint US-China study had identified 89 varieties of bat coronaviruses.

•             These were not transmittable to humans. PLA biological labs led by Dr Shi Zhengli and Maj Gen Chen Wei (top epidemiologist/ virologist) have been conducting research on weaponising the bat coronavirus (allegation in law suit filed by Larry Klayman).

•             Maj Gen Dr Shi Zhengli had written four research papers on splicing the S-protein (spike protein) of the SARS virus on to the novel bat coronavirus strains discovered earlier in PLA labs. These have suddenly been taken off the net and she has disappeared from view (Investigation report by Epoch Times of USA).

•             The Covid-19 virus gene sequencing has revealed that it has 100% amino acids and 89.1% nucleotide matching with the two bat coronavirus strains isolated earlier by the PLA Biological Warfare Laboratory (Institute of Military Medicine, Nanjing). The virus strains isolated were Coviz C-45 and CovZX C-21 from bats in Zhoushan. This degree of matching cannot happen if it was a natural mutation. The inference being drawn is that the SARS S-protein molecule (spike-hook) has possibly been spliced on to the natural bat coronavirus strains isolated earlier in the PLA lab study. Judy Mikovetz has alleged that no bats were being sold in the Wuhan wet market. (Epoch Times report).

Was Wuhan virus a Biological Pearl Harbour? Have trade wars escalated into biological first strikes and will kinetic action follow in Taiwan and South China Sea? Time alone will tell but the drift towards war is ominous. Economic ruin urges nations to fight. Whether war will get kinetic or remain confined to a Cold War with covert biological and information war strikes  remains to be seen. Conflict, however, is now in the open between the USA and China. President Trump and Mike Pompeo both have accused China of accidental release of a lab-made virus and deliberately suppressing information in the initial stages of the epidemic. A strong US economy was Donald Trump’s main election plank. With that suddenly gone, the situation has become ominous in an election year. US media reports indicate that President Trump has appointed Richard Grenell, a former media czar of Fox News, as the new director of National Intelligence with 17 agencies reporting to him. The thrust towards information war now appears clear. The fact that the Chinese regime is feeling highly threatened (Trade war, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc) and the USA is headed for a hotly-contested presidential election only complicates issues in a very major way. Accidents could happen when nations step on the escalation ladder.

The post PANDEMIC – Ominous Drift Towards US-China Conflict appeared first on IMR.

As on 7 April, Covid-19 had infected 1,431,073 people globally and some 82,096 had died. United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) has estimated the loss to the global economy as over $1 trillion. International Monetary Fund (IMF) anticipated that its negative impact would far exceed that of the 2008 recession, which was largely a localised aberration. This pandemic is truly global because it has affected almost 200 countries, so far.

In India, the focus has understandably been on the medical aspects of this epidemic. The prime minister of India rightly gave priority to saving human lives over preserving the economy. This Hobson’s choice had delayed reactions in Europe and America until it was too late. A total national level lockdown was, however, ordered in India at a relatively early stage of the outbreak of this pandemic. What we have missed completely so far has been any discussion about the national security implications of his pandemic. The focus in this issue of IMR, therefore, has been precisely on the national security dimensions of this pandemic.

Few people know that the USA and China have been very actively engaged in research on bat-borne strains of the coronavirus. Thus, in 2018, USA and China jointly funded a study in South China, which identified 89 new strains of bat-borne coronaviruses. The US biological research Lab at Maryland had cooperated extensively with the infamous Chinese Institute of Virology at Wuhan in this study. The US has two more labs specializing in biological warfare In Kazakhstan and Georgia. China has two labs focusing on biological warfare at Wuhan. A study of Chinese military doctrines shows a very heavy emphasis on exploiting biological warfare as first strikes in its strategy for non-contact warfare scenarios designed to bring a nation down to its knees without firing a shot. Our study indicates that over a 100 strains of novel bat-borne coronaviruses have already been isolated and harvested and, as such, there was no need to create such a genetically modified virus in the lab. The accidental release theories, thus, do not stand. That leaves us with the far more grim scenario of deliberate release/spread. Biological attacks could, thus, be the opening salvos of a deliberate non-contact warfare offensive.

National Security Dimensions

To empirically analyse this issue, we at IMR crystallized four causative scenarios and then war gamed them in the light of known facts about the biological warfare capabilities and research profiles on this subject in USA and China. We then took a very specific look at extant doctrines of military use of pathogens as part of unrestricted warfare or non-contact warfare. These four scenarios are:

•             Scenario One – Natural epidemic originating In the wet markets of Wuhan.
•             Scenario Two – Accidental release from lab in Wuhan.
•             Scenario Three – Deliberate release of natural bat-borne coronaviral strains by China in Wuhan to trigger global crisis and then make economic gains
•             Scenario 4 – A biological war between USA and China as an escalation of economic warfare.

Virologists and microbiologists so far are focused on Scenario 1, ie, a natural epidemic originating in the wet markets of Wuhan as the real cause. Their major complaint is about China’s delay in warning the world. This accepted wisdom needs greater analysis.

Both China and USA have accused each other of deliberate/ accidental release of this virus in Wuhan. Lab made/ genetically engineered coronaviruses were not required. Over a 100 such strains were naturally available. The strain that broke out in Wuhan was a milder single-mutation strain that is not so dangerous or fatal. Its gene-sequencing was done in India from our students who were evacuated from Wuhan. The one in Italy was far more dangerous and fatal (its hook protein molecule that latches on to the host human cell had undergone three mutations).

Could China have released the milder one in Wuhan and the more dangerous one in Europe (Italy) and USA to win the economic war, weaken the dollar and gain global economic hegemony? Alternatively, is the Chinese accusation of the US military releasing it in Wuhan correct or purely a propaganda stance to counter US accusations? Was that then the start of a biological war exchange? We have examined all these speculations in this issue.

Military Literature

Chinese military literature has talked of the biological aspects of war for the last two decades. It started with a book on Unrestricted Warfare by two Chinese senior colonels in 1999. More recently, in 2010, we had a book “War for Power” by Guo Jiwei of the Chinese Army University, which outlined a concept of war with biological characteristics. The 2017 edition of the PLA’s “Science of Military Strategy” has added a new chapter – “Biology as a Domain of Military Struggle”. It could not be more explicit. The PLA has been scripting biowarfare in their strategic discourse for more than two decades now. Devastated by the Covid pandemic the world cannot ignore these writings as theoretical moonshine.

The post Editorial: The Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on IMR.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has been a truly unprecedented Black Swan event with a major and devastating impact on global health and economy. 209 countries have been  hit so far and some 1,431,973 people infected till 7 April 2020, of whom some 82,096 have died. It has resulted in a complete shutdown of all the major cities in the world.

The unprecedented bloodbath in the stock markets  in USA, UK and Canada saw the markets tumble by 25-26% and by 14% in India. By sharp contrast, the stock market in China (after an initial freefall) was at 0.3 % gain. As per the UN Trade and Development Agency (UNCTAD) the global economy has taken a hit of some $1 trillion and could engender a recession, perhaps, greater in magnitude than the one we encountered in 2008. In fact, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said the global impact of the coronavirus will approximate that of the Recession of 2008 and possibly surpass it. Other economists point out that the 2008 implosion was due to dysfunction in US housing lending and these toxic bonds largely affected US banks and their associates elsewhere. The coronavirus pandemic, however, is truly a global shock and whole nations are in lockdown including Europe and America. Its economic impact, therefore, is likely to be much more severe. The world has been shaken by this Black Swan event. How come no one saw it coming? How has it come about so suddenly? What caused it?

The chart below gives the country wise populations effected and Numbers who died till 7 April 2020.

Coronavirus Global Cases, 7 April 2020

Country       Cases            Deaths
USA             400,489        12,857
Spain           141,942        14,045
Italy            135,586        17,127
France         109,069        10,328
Germany     107,663         2,016
China            81,802         3,333
Iran              62,589         3,872
UK                55,242         6,159
Turkey          34,109            725
Switzerland   22,253            821
India              5,351            160

Causative Scenarios

This is an analyses of four likely causative scenarios, which could have triggered this pandemic.

• Scenario 1 – Natural Occurrence. It was a naturally occurring disease. It was a novel coronavirus that made the jump from bats to humans in the wet markets of Wuhan and, thereafter, spontaneously spread from this ground zero to the whole world.
• Scenario 2 – Accidental Release. It was a genetically engineered virus that escaped from a Chinese biological research facility (Institute of Virology) at Wuhan and the infection spread from there to the whole world. The release of the pathogen was purely accidental. However, China very deliberately held back information on this outbreak and let it become a pandemic.
• Scenario 3 – Deliberate Release. Recent Chinese and American studies have both identified some 89 bat-based coronaviruses in south China. Perhaps, some of these were deliberately released by China in Wuhan after it had developed their vaccines. Armed with the first movers advantage, it rapidly arrested the spread of this epidemic in China even as it ensured that it rapidly spread to USA and Europe. The aim was to torpedo the Western economies even as its own resuscitated economy stood to make major gains at the expense of other industrial powers. This non-contact warfare strategy was succinctly summed up by Wion TV  thus – China put the world in ICU and then sold it ventilators!
• Scenario 4 – Retaliation Attack. This scenario stems from accusations made by Chinese officials (Zhao Lijian of the Chinese foreign ministry) that the US military deliberately released the coronavirus In Wuhan. Should that have been the case, the Chinese seem to have responded with a coronavirus strain that deliberately targets Caucasians (or is more lethal than the strain let loose in Wuhan). As the casualties show, it has been rather lethal against Italy, America and some other European countries (depending upon the demographics of age profile of the population). This then becomes the scenario of an economic war between USA and China, which escalates into a biological warfare exchange of attacks with Wuhan as the Pearl Harbour of a new Third World War, so to speak. This has commenced with non-contact strikes engendered by biological viruses.

From the Known to the Unknown

To analyze the four scenarios in terms of probability and plausibility, the methodology we employed was to take an inventory of the biological warfare and research facilities available in China and USA, their current research areas and then the national/military doctrines for the employment of biological warfare weapons for the deliberate attack scenarios. We will proceed from the known to the unknown. To examine the first two scenarios of natural outbreak or accidental release, we examined the views expressed by virological or  micro-biological experts in the light of current research and then looked at how this pandemic has spread on ground.

Examination of Scenario One – Natural Occurrence

Somehow, the consensus so far in the scientific community is that it is a naturally evolved or mutated coronavirus and shows no signs of having been genetically engineered in a laboratory. Majority of the virologists felt that the protein sequence of the coronavirus has evolved naturally and was not constructed in a laboratory as part of genetic engineering. Hence, they seem to rule out the accidental release thesis on this ground alone. There are, however, some caveats here.

A recent study done in 2018 in South China on bats had resulted in the discovery of 89 new novel bat coronavirus strains that used the same receptors as Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. Authors of the study did the genome sequencing of two of these strains and noted that the current MERS vaccine would not be effective against them. This study was jointly funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and USAID and US National Institute of Health. So, it is not essential that the bat coronaviruses, if employed for a deliberate attack, had perforce to be genetically modified ones. Over a 100 natural strains of bat-borne coronavirus are available and could have been employed. That opens up a whole range of possible scenarios.

Four Types of Corona Virus Strains

Dr N Nageshwara Reddy, Chairman Asian institute of Gastroentolgy points out that the coronavirus is an RNA-based virus. It originated in the mid-December or earlier in Wuhan and then travelled to USA, Italy and Europe and then after a lag of 2-3weeks it came to India. Thus, the world had some 3-4 weeks to study this virus. Small mutations occurred that enabled this virus to transfer from bats to humans. Genome sequencing of this virus has since been done in four countries – USA, Italy, China and India. The genotyping of these strains are different. He points out that the genome sequencing results in India and Italy are different. It was discovered that in India, there was a single genome mutation that occurred in the spike protein of the genome. It is this spike protein area that attaches the to the host cell in humans. This made the attachment to the host cell rather weak. On the other hand, in the Italian coronavirus, three mutations had occurred making the attachment to the host cell much stronger. This made the Italian virus far deadlier than its Indian variant. The Indian sample was taken from Indian students who had been evacuated from Wuhan. This could lead to the following set of speculations:

• For purposes of any biological/ viral attack a lab made, genetically modified bug was not the only option. There were 89 novel  bat coronavirus strains that had been identified in China itself and any of these natural occurring viruses could be used for the purposes of biological attack. Only one person or a set of persons had to be infected with a given strain to mount the attack.
• Genome sequencing of these bat coronaviruses highlights the fact that different strains with differing levels of mutation had been encountered in different countries. The ones encountered in Europe, especially Italy, were far more deadly strains than those encountered in Wuhan, where the Indian students were stranded. These points may please be noted for we will return to them later in this analysis.

Deliberate Attack Scenario

To analyse this aspect we will take an inventory of biological warfare capabilities, research facilities and extant doctrines on the use of biological warfare in America and China. Due to the relatively more open nature of society in USA, far greater levels of Information are available there. Since these organisations are largely replicated in China we will commence our discussion with US facilities and doctrines. It is noteworthy that during the Cold War both the USA and USSR had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological warfare weapons. Work on these was halted in 1969 and the Toxic & Biological Weapons Convention was finally ratified in 1975.

United States of America

In 2017-2018, the Pentagon was greatly concerned that bats could be used against  the USA as biological weapons for novel coronaviruses. There were reports that the Russians and Chinese were trying to develop such capabilities. Hence, this research was deemed defensive and reactive even though it did have an offensive component. Thus, sometime in 2017, the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) and the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTRP) began funding research involving bats and other deadly pathogens including caronaviruses like MERS, SARS and Ebola, etc. There was a programme to preempt  emerging pathogenic threats (PREEMPT program)  announced in April 2018 that focused on animal reservoirs of disease – especially bats and camels. In fact, DARPA spent $10 million on one programme in 2018 to unravel complex causes of bat-borne viruses that had recently made the jump to humans. Another project studied several new strains of corona viruses carried by bats both within China and in countries bordering China. There are three key US laboratories engaged in this biological warfare-based research programmes. These are:

• US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMIRD). This facility is located at Fort Detrick Maryland and was studying deadly pathogens  including coronaviruses, Ebola and others. On 20 July 2019, the American Centre For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ordered it to halt all research after it found that it lacked facilities to decontaminate waste water. However, CDC allowed it to partially resume research in November 2019. This US facility has a decade old and close partnership with the infamous University of Wuhan’s Institute of Virology.
• Kazhakastan-based Research Institute for Bio-Safety Problems. The Khazakastan National Centre for Biotechnology had received millions of dollars from the US government. This is an Ideal location for research on bat-based coronaviruses for it borders both Russia and China. A US government-funded study here discovered yet more new strains of novel bat coronaviruses. This study was published in 2019 under the title “Discovery and Characteristics of Novel Bat Coronavirus Lineages from Khazakistan.” This study focused on bat-fauna of Central Asia with links to China and East Europe. It found great similarities in bats of China, France, Spain and South Africa suggesting co-circulation of coronaviruses with overlapping geographical distribution. Bats from Khazakastan migrate to China. This institute is the official depository of highly dangerous animal and bird infections with a collection of 278 pathogens and strains of 46 infectious diseases.
• Lugan Centre Georgia. This is said to be a covert US biological weapons laboratory. Sketchy details are available but it is ideally suited to target Russia and do research based on animal and bird species native to that region. Such research labs in far away countries also minimize risks to own populations in cases of accidental release of pathogens.

US Doctrinal Aspects

• 2018 US Bio-Defense Strategy Document. This is an authoritative text and talks of minimizing the risk of bio-threats as a vital national interest of the US. These threats could be due to naturally occurring diseases, accidents involving dangerous pathogens and, finally, deliberate attacks using bio-agents.
• Race/ Ethnicity Specific Bio-agents. The US think tank – Project for a New American Century – had openly advocated the use of race/ ethnicity specific, genetically modified bio-weapons as politically useful tools. Much research has been done in USA and Israel in developing super viruses that will target a certain type of genetic profile. This is a class of bio-weapons that exploit the MHC class of receptor molecules in the immune system that differs among races. It has to do with changing parts of that super virus that bind on the cellular receptors of targeted races. Thus, we could have bio-weapons that attack only Arabs and do not harm the Jews.
• Russia’s Maj Gen Kirilov, Head of Russian Military Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection unit, accused the US military of harvesting DNA from Russians as part of a covert bio-weapons programme for specific ethnicities. China has also accused the US military of harvesting DNA from Chinese citizens surreptitiously. Whether these are serious allegations or just pro-forma accusations for propaganda advantage, remains to be seen.

Chinese Biological Warfare Capabilities and Doctrines

Chinese society is the most opaque and secretive. Hence, little information is available in the open domain and often recourse has to be made to Western media sources. A recent  Washington Times report claimed that Wuhan has two laboratories linked to China’s biological warfare programme. It cited reports of Israeli bio-warfare specialist Dany Shoham for this. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, under its Director Maj Gen Shi Zhingli, is China’s main laboratory for bio-warfare. Gen Shing Li is also the head of Institute of Bioengineering Academy of Military Sciences at Beijing. Maj Gen Chen Wei is the Chinese military’s top epidomologist and virologist. Reportedly, it is he who led the efforts for the creation of Covid-19 and then the fight against it. These individuals have been cited by name by US lawyer Larry Klayman who has filed a $20 trillion lawsuit against the Chinese government for Covid-19. He asserts that the US intelligence agencies have adequate proof of coronavirus as a Chinese bio-weapons programme.

Some reports have cited a 3 February 2020 speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Politburo Standing Committee. It cited him as saying how, on 7 January, he personally had issued orders to prevent and control the coronavirus. “Laboratory safety was a national security issue”. This speech has been cited as evidence by proponents of the coronavirus lab leak scenario. The Chinese, however, insist that it was a natural occurrence and cited Patient Zero – a Chinese woman who was selling shrimps in the Wuhan wet market. Earlier a man had been cited.

Chinese Doctrinal Approach

In 1999, two Chinese senior Colonels Quiao Liang and Wang Xiangsi had written a path-breaking book called “Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master plan to Destroy America.” It was largely a theoretical manual on non contact warfare and using all means – military and non-military to bring an adversary to his knees – preferably without fighting.

More recently, in 2010, we had a book “War for Power” by Guo Jiwei of the Chinese Army University, which outlined a concept of war with biological characteristics.

Coming to the present, the 2017 edition of the PLA’s “Science of Military Strategy” has added a new chapter – “Biology as a Domain of Military Struggle.” It could not be more explicit. The PLA has been scripting bio-warfare in their strategic discourse for more than two decades now. The cross integration of Biotechnology, Genetic Engineering and Information Technology has aided the evolution of this line of thinking in non-contact warfare – the new buzzword in Chinese strategic thinking.

Non-Contact Warfare. Non-contact warfare seeks to employ all elements of national power to leverage their influence across multiple domains through kinetic and non-kinetic means with a view to intimidate, paralyse or denude the enemy’s politico military response capabilities and enable winning without fighting or fight with minimal physical contact of our forces. The goal of non-contact warfare is to collapse the enemy systems into confusion and disorder. Biological warfare can actualize the Sun Tzu dictum – the acme of excellence is to subdue the enemy without fighting. It is an important element of non-contact warfare.

(See also “The Speculations Against China”

The post Pandemic : Analysis of the Corona Virus Pandemic appeared first on IMR.

December 6: According to a study in The Lancet, the symptom onset date of the first patient identified was Dec 1, 2019.

December 21: Wuhan doctors begin to notice a “cluster of pneumonia cases with an unknown cause.”

December 25: Chinese medical staff in two hospitals in Wuhan are suspected of contracting viral pneumonia and are quarantined. This is additional strong evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Sometime in “Late December”: Wuhan hospitals notice “an exponential increase” in the number of cases that cannot be linked back to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

December 30: Dr. Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of other doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), urging them to take protective measures against infection.

December 31: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission declares, “The investigation so far has not found any obvious human-to-human transmission and no medical staff infection.” This is the opposite of the belief of the doctors working on patients in Wuhan, and two doctors were already suspected of contracting the virus.

Three weeks after doctors first started noticing the cases, China contacts the World Health Organization.

January 1: The Wuhan Public Security Bureau issued summons to Dr. Li Wenliang, accusing him of “spreading rumors.” Two days later, at a police station, Dr. Li signed a statement acknowledging his “misdemeanor” and promising not to commit further “unlawful acts.” Seven other people are arrested on similar charges and their fate is unknown.

Also that day, “after several batches of genome sequence results had been returned to hospitals and submitted to health authorities, an employee of one genomics company received a phone call from an official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission, ordering the company to stop testing samples from Wuhan related to the new disease and destroy all existing samples.”

According to a New York Times study of cellphone data from China, 175,000 people leave Wuhan that day. According to global travel data research firm OAG, 21 countries have direct flights to Wuhan. In the first quarter of 2019 for comparison, 13,267 air passengers traveled from Wuhan, China, to destinations in the United States, or about 4,422 per month. The U.S. government would not bar foreign nationals who had traveled to China from entering the country for another month.

January 2: One study of patients in Wuhan can only connect 27 of 41 infected patients to exposure to the Huanan seafood market – indicating human-to-human transmission away from the market.

Also on this day, the Wuhan Institute of Virology completed mapped the genome of the virus. The Chinese government would not announce that breakthrough for another week.

January 3: The Chinese government continued efforts to suppress all information about the virus: “China’s National Health Commission, the nation’s top health authority, ordered institutions not to publish any information related to the unknown disease, and ordered labs to transfer any samples they had to designated testing institutions, or to destroy them.”

Roughly one month after the first cases in Wuhan, the United States government is notified. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gets initial reports about a new coronavirus from Chinese colleagues.

Also on this day, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission released another statement, repeating, “As of now, preliminary investigations have shown no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission and no medical staff infections.”

January 4: The head of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Infection, Ho Pak-leung, warned that “the city should implement the strictest possible monitoring system for a mystery new viral pneumonia that has infected dozens of people on the mainland, as it is highly possible that the illness is spreading from human to human.”

January 6: The New York Times publishes its first report about the virus, declaring that “59 people in the central city of Wuhan have been sickened by a pneumonia-like illness.”

Also that day, the CDC  “issued a level 1 travel watch – the lowest of its three levels – for China’s outbreak.

Also that day, the CDC offered to send a team to China to assist with the investigation. The Chinese government declined, but a WHO team that included two Americans would visit February 16.

January 8: Chinese medical authorities claim to have identified the virus.

January 10: After unknowingly treating a patient with the Wuhan coronavirus, Dr. Li Wenliang started coughing and developed a fever. He was hospitalized on January 12. In the following days, Li’s condition deteriorated so badly that he was admitted to the intensive care unit and given oxygen support.

January 11: The Wuhan City Health Commission issues an update declaring, “All 739 close contacts, including 419 medical staff, have undergone medical observation and no related cases have been found . . . No new cases have been detected since January 3, 2020. At present, no medical staff infections have been found, and no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission has been found.”

Also on this day, political leaders in Hubei province, which includes Wuhan, began their regional meeting. The coronavirus was not mentioned over four days of meetings.

January 13: Authorities in Thailand detected the virus in a 61-year-old Chinese woman who was visiting from Wuhan, the first case outside of China.

January 14: Wuhan city health authorities release another statement declaring, “Among the close contacts, no related cases were found.” Wuhan doctors have known this was false since early December, from the first victim and his wife, who did not visit the market.

January 15: Japan reported its first case of coronavirus.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission begins to change its statements, now declaring, “Existing survey results show that clear human-to-human evidence has not been found, and the possibility of limited human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out, but the risk of continued human-to-human transmission is low.”

January 17: The CDC and the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection announce that travelers from Wuhan to the United States will undergo entry screening for symptoms associated with 2019-nCoV at three San Francisco, New York (JFK), and Los Angeles airports that receive most of the travelers from Wuhan, China.

Despite the fact that Wuhan doctors know the virus is contagious, city authorities allow 40,000 families to gather and share home-cooked food in a Lunar New Year banquet.

January 19: The Chinese National Health Commission declares the virus “still preventable and controllable.”

January 20: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission declares for the last time in its daily bulletin, “no related cases were found among the close contacts.”

Head of China’s national health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in China’s Guangdong province had been caused by human-to-human transmission and medical staff had been infected.

The Wuhan Evening News newspaper, the largest newspaper in the city, mentions the virus on the front page for the first time since January 5.

January 21: The CDC announced the first U.S. case of a the coronavirus in a Snohomish County, Wash., resident who returning from China six days earlier.

By this point, millions of people have left Wuhan, carrying the virus all around China and into other countries.

January 23: Chinese authorities announce their first steps for a quarantine of Wuhan. By this point, millions have already visited the city and left it during the Lunar New Year celebrations. Singapore and Vietnam report their first cases, and by now an unknown but significant number of Chinese citizens have traveled abroad as asymptomatic, oblivious carriers.

January 24: Vietnam reports person-to-person transmission, and Japan, South Korea, and the U.S report their second cases.

February 1: Dr. Li Wenliang tested positive for coronavirus. He died from it six days later.

February 4: Mayor of Florence, Italy, Dario Nardella urged residents to hug Chinese people to encourage them in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, a member of Associazione Unione Giovani Italo Cinesi, a Chinese society in Italy aimed at promoting friendship between people in the two countries, called for respect for novel coronavirus patients during a street demonstration. “I’m not a virus. I’m a human. Eradicate the prejudice.”

February 11: WHO proposed an official name of the virus: COVID-19, an acronym for Coronavirus disease 2019.

February 12: UN activates WHO-led Crises Management Team (CMT) bringing together WHO, OCHA, IMO, UNICEF, ICAO, WFP, FAO, the World Bank and several UN Secretariat departments.

February 13: More than 14,000 new cases were reported in Hubei Province.

February 14: France announces the first coronavirus death in Europe.

February 17: Chinese officials drafted legislation to curb the practice of eating wildlife as it was considered the probable source of the highly contagious disease.

February 19: Hundreds of people left the Diamond Princess cruise ship which was quarantined. People who were tested negative for the virus were offloaded.

February 23: Europe faced its first major outbreak due to the increase in a number of cases in Italy.

February 24: Iran emerged the second focus point of the virus after China.

March 7: Positive COVID-19 cases crossed the 100,000 mark. 100 countries were infected by this time.

March 11: WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. Trump blocks visitors from Europe.

March 12: First death was reported in India due to COVID-19.

March 13: President Trump declared a national emergency in the US. Europe becomes the epicentre of the global pandemic.

March 14: India declared COVID-19 a notified disaster.

March 17: EU bars travellers outside the bloc for a period of 30 days. France imposed nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19.

March 19: Italy overtakes China death tolls.

March 22: India observed Janta Curfew for a day.

March 24: Tokyo Olympics postponed for a year until 2021. Prime Minister Modi announced 21-day lockdown in India.

April 6: Death toll in India crossed the hundred mark.

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