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Gu Zhuheng, the owner of Sing Pao Daily News, one of the oldest Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong, tweeted on February 23, that soldiers from the Guangdong Army Biological and Chemical Protection Regiment that was recently sent to Wuhan had died three weeks ago. He also posted a picture of himself in military uniform and his ID when he worked with that regiment. Gu was exiled to the U.S. in 2017 after Beijing wanted to arrest him for a financial matter.

Qi Leyi, a host of a military program for Radio Free Asia, talked about the Biological and Chemical Protection troops in the PLA. She said that each army has such a unit at the regiment or battalion level. They participated in the rescue mission during the 2003 SARS outbreak in China.

She also pointed out that three things were needed to develop lethal biological weapon and China had all of them. One was the relevant technology, facility, and raw materials. Two was a laboratory of the highest safety level. Three was access to the original virus. Qiu Xiangguo and Cheng Keding, the couple and expert virologists in Canada had been visiting the Wuhan P4 lab multiple times. Canadian police arrested them  for taking virus samples to China from the Canadian P4 lab that they worked at.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Virus Origin: Wuhan Lab Has Close Tie to the PLA
• Virus Origin: Henan Province Issued an Order to Safely Manage Laboratory Animals
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Virus Origin: SARS Virus Was Leaked in Beijing in 2004
• Virus Origin: Genome Analysis of the New Wuhan Coronavirus Found Viral Sequences Suspicious of Laboratory Engineering

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Radio France International reported that Major General Chen Wei, China’s chief biochemical weapon defense expert, took over the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, China’s first Biocontainment Level 4 (BL4) lab (Chinese call it a P4 lab) in Wuhan, after the coronavirus outbreak. A news report on February 7 mentioned that she had been in Wuhan for over ten days, so she probably took over the P4 lab around the same time as Wuhan locked down the city (on January 23, 2020).

Radio France International also reported that China requested France to help it build this lab in 2003. Despite the warning from its Intelligence offices that China could use it to develop biochemical weapons, France still signed the agreement with China on 2004. The agreement stated that Beijing should not apply the technology to activities of an attacking nature.

In 2005, China designated a local company IPPR in Wuhan to manage the project. That company had close ties with some units affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA); the CIA had been monitoring those units.

It is unclear whether Beijing has honored its promise not to develop biochemical weapons at the lab. A government official in France told news reporters that China has broken its promises several times in the past. For example, China promised to build only one lab, but now it has built several and some labs look suspicious.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Virus Origin: Henan Province Issued an Order to Safely Manage Laboratory Animals
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Virus Origin: SARS Virus Was Leaked in Beijing in 2004
• Virus Origin: Genome Analysis of the New Wuhan Coronavirus Found Viral Sequences Suspicious of Laboratory Engineering

Continue reading →

Associated Press reported that Russia has given orders to profile Chinese for coronavirus.

“Moscow officials ordered police raids on hotels, dormitories, apartment buildings and businesses to track down the shrinking number of Chinese people remaining in the city. They also authorized the use of facial recognition technology to find those suspected of evading a 14-day self-quarantine period upon their arrival in Russia.”

“A leaked email that the media reports said that the state-owned transportation company Mosgortrans” sent out “instructed drivers to call a dispatcher if Chinese nationals boarded their buses” and “told the dispatchers who took such calls to notify the police. The email, which the company immediately described on Twitter as fake, carried a one-word subject line: coronavirus.”

“The effort to identify Chinese citizens on public transportation applies not only to buses, but also to underground trains and street trams in Moscow, Russian media reported Wednesday.”

Source: Associated Press, February 22, 2020
https://apnews.com/8a43b0b86b63b1179ccd9a9c1977a339?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow[2

Yahoo reported that it obtained information from U.S. intelligence that the Chinese leadership is planning “for what is known as a ‘continuity of operations,’ meaning the ability for the government to maintain its basic functions during an unprecedented crisis, such as nuclear war or natural disaster.”

The source stated, “In China, this might involve senior leaders leaving the country or seeking safety in shelters, ‘like U.S. doomsday bunkers.’ The intel community, said the source, is seeing some signs that Chinese officials are making those kinds of contingency plans, indicating the potential level of concern within Beijing.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Leadership: “Turning Point Has Not Come Yet”
• Leadership: Ding Xiangyang: Xi Jinping Ordered Wuhan Lockdown
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Told Trump That by April, the Heat Will Kill Coronavirus
• Leadership: Xi Jinping: I Have Been In Charge All Along

Source: Yahoo, February 21, 2020S
https://news.yahoo.com/with-information-from-china-scarce-us-spies-enlisted-to-track-coronavirus-173612656.html

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo held a meeting on February 21 to discuss the control and prevention work on the novel coronavirus. The meeting pointed out, “While the wide spread of the epidemic has been initially controlled and the number of new cases nationwide and the suspected cases have been declining, we must understand it clearly. The turning point of the nationwide epidemic’s development has not come yet.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Leadership: Ding Xiangyang: Xi Jinping Ordered Wuhan Lockdown
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Leadership: Xi Explains His Role in Containing Coronavirus since January 7
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Told Trump That by April, the Heat Will Kill Coronavirus
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Made a Public Appearance on February 10
• Leadership: Xi Jinping: I Have Been In Charge All Along

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Ding Xiangyang, the Deputy Chief Secretary of the State Council and a member of the Central government’s Supervision Group at Hubei Province, stated that it was Xi Jinping who ordered the Wuhan lockdown.

Ding made such statement at a press conference on February 20, 2020. Ding said, “Actually, when Vice Premier Sun Chunlan came to Wuhan on January 22, she made two decisions based on the specific direction from the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (Xi Jinping), that would be a ‘city lockdown’ and that the holiday would be extended (so people had to stay home instead of going back to work).” “It is not easy to reach a consensus with everyone at that time, but with the CCP Central’s support, we were determined to do that. No matter who said what, we were determined to do that.”

On January 27, 2020, when China Central Television (CCTV) interviewed Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang,   Zhou stated that he had decided to lock down the city under the pressure in spite of people’s negative response. (See posting Leadership: Wuhan Mayor Not “Authorized” to Release Epidemic Information to the Public Before)

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Leadership: Xi Explains His Role in Containing Coronavirus since January 7
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Made a Public Appearance on February 10
• Leadership: Xi Jinping: I Have Been In Charge All Along
• Leadership: Wuhan Mayor Not “Authorized” to Release Epidemic Information to the Public Before

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There have been reports that Gao Fu, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was taken down because he did not take proper measures in handling the coronavirus. Beijing later declared that was a rumor.

However, Hua Sheng, an economist in China, published a lengthy article on Weibo, to defend Gao Fu. The article was titled, “What If Group criticism of Gao Fu Chose the Wrong Target?” It discussed a serious of events from December to January and described Gao Fu as the highest level warning provider in the communist regime system. It also defended Gao for not going to Wuhan, the epicenter, because Gao needed to stay in his place and position to organize resources to work on epidemic control.

It then asked, “Since the information gathering and the response of the local government and state offices were not delayed, why were there still so many delays and mistakes in the early stage of stopping the virus?”

China Business Network (第一财经), a media established in Shanghai in 2003 that focuses on business information, published an excerpt from the article’s defense of Gao Fu.

Related Posting on Chinascope regarding officials declaring their innocence:

• Leadership: Xi Explains His Role in Containing Coronavirus since January 7
• Leadership: Wuhan Municipal Website Defended Its Mayor
• Leadership: Wuhan Mayor Not “Authorized” to Release Epidemic Information to the Public Before

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In one of its own documents, the China Media Group (中央广播电视总台), also known as Voice of China, stated that, on January 1, 2020, it released an internal reference report (内参) to the higher ups regarding the coronavirus in Wuhan.

Staff from its Wuhan station conducted research on the issue on December 31 and created two reports, including data, analysis, and recommendations, and circulated them to the higher ups on January 1. It didn’t mention who was included in its circulation, but normally it should have reached the top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders and the Central government.

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