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China-US tensions over COVID origins & Russia's war
But a couple of points here. First, this lab-leak concept was one that would get you banned on social media if you came out with it a year ago. And it just goes to show how you can have a dominant narrative that gets picked up politically and suddenly no one's allowed to ask questions anymore. That doesn't make it a conspiracy theory, it means that people are still trying to understand where it is, what's going on. There was so much that was uncertain about this disease in the early days. One of the things that annoyed me about Fauci, who I've interviewed a couple of times myself, gotten to know him a bit, is the fact that he came out feeling like he was so certain in some of his early communications, on things that he obviously wasn't certain about, and ended up undermining and de-legitimizing science and the medical community in the US in a way that we really cannot afford to do so.
Saying you don't know something is okay. I mean, back last May, I published the fact that I had no idea if it came from a lab or if it came from a wet market. What was clear to me is that it was getting politicized. What was clear from the scientific community is that the disease had not been bioengineered, that it was an accident that it came out. What was also clear is the Chinese lied to their own citizens and internationally, about the virus's origins, when they knew that there was human-human transmission. They lied to the WHO, the World Health Organization, and as a consequence, it was much worse for everyone. And they're still not allowing the WHO or others to investigate appropriately the origins. The fact that the country that the virus came from is not willing to be transparent with the global scientific community. I mean, thankfully there were a bunch of doctors and scientists in China that had humanity and said, "We got to get this out no matter what." Or it would've been even worse.
But it's an enormous problem when politics intervenes in what needs to be just a follow-the-science situation. And that's true on climate, it's true on the pandemic, it's true in so many areas of the world. And in that regard, we haven't changed much at all from today through the beginnings of the pandemic. This, of course, is going to make the Americans feel tougher about relations with China. That is also true on the back of China embracing, welcoming Belarus President/Dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, completely illegitimate leader of that country, using all sorts of repression and force against his own domestic opposition. No free press of course. Again, not surprising for the Chinese at all, but one of Russia's key allies, this on the back of Wang Yi visiting Moscow, and what I expect, relatively soon, will be an announcement that Xi Jinping is going to Moscow. There is a greater comfort of these two countries working more closely together.
Does that mean that the Chinese will provide weapons directly for Russia? I don't think so. I think that's indeed why the Americans put the Chinese on notice. They had intelligence that the Chinese were considering sending drones over. The UK, the NATO Secretary General, also making those statements very strongly. The Europeans and the Americans would have a very different reaction if the Chinese decided to go ahead and put those weapons forward. Now diplomatically, what the Chinese have been saying to the Europeans behind closed doors is, "Look, you guys are providing all these weapons. You're escalating. We are showing restraint." Having said that, if you want to call BS on what the Chinese are saying, you say, "Look, a majority of the world's countries recognize, and have recognized for three straight General Assembly resolutions, that this is an illegal invasion that needs to be condemned and ended immediately. The Chinese have decided that they're going to be neutral and abstain. But most of the world's countries, even the Global South, do not agree with China on this.
That's important, because if the Chinese were to provide weapons to the country that actually invaded, illegally, against the will of the General Assembly, the Chinese are putting themselves in the position of supporting a rogue state. And that is not a position China wants to be in. Not a country that needs economic support and integration from all of the world, not just countries they dominate economically. So I believe that the Chinese may have been fooling around with the idea of providing some weapons to Russia, may have been floating that because they wanted more influence with their own 12-point peace deal. But I would be very surprised if they proceed in providing that support. That's a good thing, in the context of US-China news that right now have very few positive headlines that we're talking about.
So that's it for me. Hope everyone's well, I'll talk to you all real soon.
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What is China’s zero-COVID policy?
We've all heard about there being zero COVID in China. But there's more to Beijing's pandemic containment strategy, which started immediately after the initial Wuhan outbreak.
"Through swift action, lockdowns, quarantine and contact tracing, the country was able to quickly reduce cases," says Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"The success in Wuhan led to greater implementation countrywide, and ever since Beijing has kept COVID at bay." Zero COVID, by the way, "means zero — not close to zero," which explains why Shanghai Disneyland shut down and 30,000 tests were conducted after a single suspected infection.
Despite lockdowns, Huang says the policy is quite popular in China, where many people "are even proud that the country has gotten the virus under control, especially as the United States struggles."
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Whatsapp logo and binary cyber codes.
What We’re Watching: WhatsApp sues India, US to (re)probe COVID origins, mob boss vs Turkish president
WhatsApp sues India: First it was TikTok. Then Facebook and Twitter. Now WhatsApp is the latest target of India's crackdown on online free speech. The social media messaging app, used by hundreds of millions of Indians daily, has filed a lawsuit against the Indian government to stop a new law that would require WhatsApp to trace users' encrypted messages. The law grants Delhi sweeping powers to block or remove any content that threatens national security, public order, or whatever the Indian government considers to be decency or morality. WhatsApp argues this would violate privacy rights, and is willing to fight it out in court. So far, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been successful in stifling online criticism of his government, especially over its handling of the country's ongoing COVID crisis. But WhatsApp's immense popularity among Indians gives the Facebook-owned tech firm considerable leverage, and at a moment when his approval rating has already hit all-time lows, Modi may fear a backlash if the messaging app suddenly goes offline.
Another COVID origins probe: Did it come from a bat or from a lab? The origins of COVID continue to perplex. But after the WSJreported earlier this week that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology got sick with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, the Biden administration directed US intelligence agencies to re-investigate the origins of the disease. Barely three months ago, a joint China/WHO probe "concluded" that the virus was most likely transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, but it did not entirely rule out that it could have come from the Wuhan lab. Moreover, many countries questioned the findings because the report was co-written by the Chinese, who have an interest in deflecting blame. Will the new report establish more credibly whether the virus was in fact leaked — accidentally or on purpose — from the Wuhan lab? Biden's spooks have 90 days to find out.
Mob boss vs Turkish president: Sedat Peker, a convicted Turkish mobster who lives in exile, has threatened "all-out war" on the government of strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But it's not with guns, it's with... YouTube. Peker has recently racked up more than 30 million views with videos clips where he sits in what look like various Dubai hotel conference rooms — shirt open to the navel and gold chain blinging — methodically spilling the beans about all kinds of corruption, extra-marital affairs, murders, mob ties, drug trafficking, and other malfeasance by members of Turkey's ruling AKP party, government officials, and even Erdogan himself. The president has defended his officials, but Peker, who is planning to release several more videos, says: "A dog that doesn't know how to bark will call a wolf home." We have no idea what that means, but it sounds like he means business. Special bonus: can any readers tell us what's scribbled on the whiteboard behind Peker in this photo? Let us know here.
What is the real origin of the COVID-19 virus?
A controversial new World Health Organization report on the origins of the coronavirus that suggests it likely originated from a bat but transferred to humans via an intermediary animal. Could the virus have emerged from a Chinese lab, as former CDC Director Robert Redfield recently suggested? That's the least likely scenario, says the WHO's chief scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan. "The betacoronaviruses are very, very common in bats and there's a lot of genetic similarity between the SARS-CoV2 and many of the viruses in the...bat species," Dr. Swaminathan told Ian Bremmer in an interview on GZERO World, airing on US public television stations starting April 9. Check local listings.
Watch the episode: Vaccine nationalism could prolong the pandemic
What We’re Watching: Hong Kong crackdown, Maduro tightens grip in Venezuela, WHO out of Wuhan
China cracks down (again) on Hong Kong democracy: In the largest crackdown since China introduced its Hong Kong security law six months ago, police arrested 53 members of the city's pro-democracy movement. The detainees — who had helped organize an unofficial primary vote for opposition candidates ahead of elections later this year — are accused of trying to overthrow the city's pro-Beijing government. One of those jailed is a US lawyer and American citizen. In the same operation, police also raided the home of Joshua Wong, a prominent activist who is already serving a one-year prison term for standing up to China's takeover of Hong Kong. China says the activists are backed by foreigners who want to use Hong Kong as a base to undermine China's stability and security, while the opposition argues that China is just using the new law to silence legitimate dissent. Now, with most pro-democracy figures behind bars or in exile, the mass street protests that prompted the passage of the security law are unlikely to return, and the future of democracy in the city is bleak.
Maduro takes over parliament in Venezuela: Following recent elections largely boycotted by the opposition, allies of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro officially took control over the country's National Assembly this week. For the past several years the Assembly had been the only part of the government not in Maduro's grasp. During that time, the body was headed by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who in 2018-2019 led mass protests over the authoritarian drift and economic incompetence of the Maduro regime, and was recognized as "interim president" by the US, EU, and most Latin American democracies. Since then, Guaidó's star has fallen – Maduro held his ground, the streets got tired, and the opposition couldn't unify. Now, Guaidó is left heading a shadow assembly that will still meet but has no real power, and his foreign backers will have to reassess whether continuing to support him is the best way to advance their interests in Venezuela.
Wuhan cover-up 2.0? World Health Organization experts investigating the origins of the coronavirus have been denied entry to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the initial outbreak of COVID-19 was reported over a year ago. China and the WHO — which for some were too cozy early in the pandemic — have been negotiating for months over this mission, which aims in part to assess whether the virus in fact came from a meat market or elsewhere. After taking flack for covering up the initial outbreak in Wuhan, Beijing had promised to be more forthcoming, but keeping WHO fact-finders out of Wuhan shows that Xi Jinping is still wary of any probe or evidence that might undermine China's international reputation — especially at a time when Beijing is deploying its COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy to win arms and minds in dozens of developing countries. But the world wants to know more about what happened in Wuhan, will credible answers ever emerge?Wuhan market where Covid-19 outbreak started now walled off
WUHAN - Associated with the earliest outbreak of Covid-19 in the world, the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market has been shut since Jan 1.
Wuhan: A city of resilience, a city of scars
WUHAN - On a rainy Sunday evening, a line of about 100 cars is at a standstill waiting to enter an upscale mall in the Guanggu district east of Wuhan.
A city of resilience, a city of scars
On a rainy Sunday evening, a line of about 100 cars is at a standstill waiting to enter an upscale mall in the Guanggu district east of Wuhan.