Social Stability – Page 39

Hiding Information: Beijing Asked Labs to Destroy Coronavirus Samples

The South China Morning Post reported on May 15 that, at an early stage in the outbreak, Beijing confirmed it had ordered unauthorized laboratories to destroy samples of the novel coronavirus.

Liu Dengfeng, an official with the National Health Commission’s science and education department, said this was done at unauthorized labs to “prevent the risk to laboratory biological safety and to prevent secondary disasters that unidentified pathogens might cause.”

The South China Morning Post also reported that, according to a provincial health commission notice issued in February, those handling virus samples were ordered not to provide them to any institutions or labs without approval. Unauthorized labs that obtained samples in the early stage of the outbreak had to destroy them or send them to a municipal center for disease control and prevention for storage.

The article mentioned that the Chinese magazine Caixin reported in February that some hospitals had sent samples to private gene sequencing companies to identify the mystery virus early in the outbreak. The report said that some of those results came back as early as December 27 and were identified as being from the same coronavirus family as SARS. According to the report, one company had been told to destroy all virus samples.

The National Health Commission started investigating the virus on December 31 and informed the World Health Organization of the outbreak the same day. On January 3, it ruled out that the virus was a known pathogen causing respiratory disease, and on January 9, it said the illness was caused by a novel coronavirus. It was later named Sars-CoV-2, and the disease it causes was named Covid-19.

Public Opinion: A Tsinghua Professor Criticized the CCP’s Handling of the Coronavirus and Called for Political Reform

From May 21 to May 27 and May 22 to May 28, respectively, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is holding its “Lianghui,” or the “Two Conferences,” which stands for the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the National Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (NCPPCC). The “Lianghui” is a rubber stamp process to show there is “democracy” in China: the representatives of the people in the country can review, approve, and comment on the work of the central government and can make decisions about the personnel in the committees of the NPC and the NCPPCC.

Around the same time, Xu Zhangrun, a Tsinghua Professor, wrote a lengthy article, listing the CCP’s errors in handling the coronavirus, running the country, and holding a prejudiced ideology. He called for political reform and true democracy in China. His article was widely spread on the Internet though the CCP continues to delete it.

Professor Xu’s article makes the following main points:

(The Regime’s) Politics is (to rule by) Fear, to (Survive) Disasters, and to (have Being be the) Savior
There is an Interdependence between the Savage State and Totalitarian Politics
(Although it is a Big Country, China Is Only) a Small Country in Human Civilization
(The Concept that the CCP Promotes) a “Community of a Shared Future for Mankind” No Longer Exists
Ideological Prejudice is opposed to a Rational State of Good Governance
A Political Foundation (should be) Based on Truth and Responsibility

On the last point, Xu further listed eight points for the government to start implementing, to “avoid the disaster from happening again”:

Reveal the true history, completely investigate the cause and the origin of the novel coronavirus, and provide the actual infection data to the public.
Thoroughly go after the accountability including the highest political responsibility (of the officials) and order (them) to apologize to the people for their crimes and hand them over to justice.
Release all innocent citizens including citizen “reporters” (people who reported the true pandemic outbreak situation on their own since the news reporters of the government-controlled media were not allowed to do so), human rights attorneys, religious leaders, and people who were against the authorities’ violence; stop persecuting university professors who tell the truth.
Select a site in Wuhan to build a “2020 Crying Wall,” engraving the names, gender, and birth and death dates of all victims of this pandemic.
Select a site in Wuhan to build a “Righteous People Statue” for the eight whistleblowers (they told others about the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan but the authorities punished them) and for the one person “who handed out the whistle” (referring to Aifen who provided the infection information to the whistleblowers) to promote citizen’s integrity and public justice.
Require the government to set up a special fund for the orphans whose parents died of coronavirus or died for treating the virus; however, this fund should not cover the orphans of the Internet police who died from overwork from deleting people’s posting on the Internet.
Establish “Dr. Li Wenliang’s Day,” or China’s “Freedom of Speech Day,” to let all citizens remember the Constitution’s declaration of citizens’ rights to freedom of speech.
Stop the Internet policing policy; remove the Internet Information Office’s power to violate citizen’s privacy and freedom of speech and power to admonish teachers, doctors, and writers for their thoughts; establish a law to expose officials’ assets; abolish all CCP organizations and their affiliated organizations in academic and education institutes; immediately stop the nationwide practice of forced-abolition of people’s homes and return the ownership of land back to the citizens (the CCP claims that the land belongs to the government). Further, stop the ban on establishing private media and non-CCP parties and establish a one-person-one-vote system. In all, start political reform and publish a political reform timetable.

World against the CCP: China Became the Target at the World Health Assembly

An article from Radio Free Asia stated that Beijing was isolated at the World Health Assembly (WHA) that was held on May 18 and 19, 2020. It mentioned several points:

1. A proposal, initiated by Australia, drafted by the European Union, and signed by 122 countries including Russia, Japan, and Nigeria requested an “independent investigation” into the origin and spread of the novel coronavirus. All 194 member countries, including China, voted yes and passed the resolution. The article commented that the reason the Beijing supported the resolution was that it changed its strategy after failing in a direct confrontation against the world. It will now join the investigation team, with the hope to alienate and instigate member countries and to muddle the investigation by changing the investigation site, the objectives, and the methods, to get itself out of having any accountability.

2. Xi Jinping promised to donate 2 billion dollars to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the next two years. John Ullyot, the Spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement that China’s commitment “is a token to distract from calls from a growing number of nations demanding accountability for the Chinese government’s failure to meet its obligations.”

3. The article also stated that, despite the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) global propaganda campaign, it has ended up being in a worsened situation of isolation. It mentioned a few things that the CCP didn’t anticipate:

The entire world, including countries that used to have a good relationship with Beijing, aligned with the U.S. (against the CCP) as one side.
Russia joined the alliance despite China’s offer of substantial financial support to Russia when it was boycotted by the U.S. and Europe.
African countries, who used to be the CCP’s good friends, jumped uniformly to the opposite side, with Nigeria being the leader and demanding 200 billion dollars in compensation. The African League also asked for compensation.
WHO Director-General Tedros had a dramatic change. He supported the “investigation” request and even proactively requested a review of whether to invite Taiwan to attend the assembly.

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