Just a week ago I asserted that China had made itself a “laughingstock” by its conduct in the virus situation, particularly by trying to create a ridiculous narrative of heroic victory over the infection through issuing completely fake data as to numbers of infections and deaths. Things were bad then, and they’ve gotten even worse since. Today, in an important article published by the Gatestone Institute titled “Coronavirus: China’s Great Cover-up,” Giulio Meotti has a very thorough roundup of China’s atrocious conduct on this subject.

Reading the whole thing, it becomes apparent that the efforts at narrative control are so all-pervasive and so iron-fisted that you can’t help suspecting that there must be some very dirty secret that has to be hidden no matter what. Could this really just be Xi’s prickly ego insisting that all under his thumb must utter only praise? Maybe, but there comes a point, which has now been reached, where people with critical thinking capability can’t help suspecting the worst. It’s the usual place where socialism ends up.

Some of the key points from Meotti’s piece:

• Do you think you know that the virus in humans originated via a “wet market” in Wuhan? That’s what the official Chinese press announced on January 10. From the New York Times of that date, giving as its source the “Xinhua news agency”: “The initial cases were linked to workers at a market that sold live fish, birds and other animals.”  But has there been any independent confirmation of that source? No. From Meotti: “There is no record at all, however, about how this pandemic began.. . . No foreign doctors, journalists, analysts or international observers are present in Wuhan.” 

• The Times of London reported on March 1 that an independent Chinese news source, Caixin Global, had stated that on January 1, “[a] regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia.” Again according to the Times of London, “Censors have been rapidly deleting the report from the Chinese internet.”

• You have probably heard of Dr. Li Wenliang, a Chinese doctor who sounded early warnings about the virus and has since died of the disease. But have you heard of Ai Fen? She was the head of the emergency department at Wuhan Central Hospital. In mid-March she went public with a statement that authorities had stopped her from warning the world about the danger. On March 30, 60 Minutes Australia reported that Ai Fen had gone incommunicado:  "‘Just two weeks ago the head of Emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital went public, saying authorities had stopped her and her colleagues from warning the world,’ flagship investigative show 60 Minutes Australia reported on Sunday. She has now disappeared, her whereabouts unknown, the show reported, also tweeting photos of Ai.”

• And then there are independent journalists Feng Bin and Chen Qiushi. From the BBC, February 14: “Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi were both determined to share what they could about the crisis, reporting from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, and sending what they found out into the world. As a result, they racked up thousands of views on their videos. But their channels have now gone quiet, and those who followed them online fear they may have disappeared for good. . . . “

• Undoubtedly you have heard of the two Chinese virus research laboratories in Wuhan, one located just a few hundred feet from the wet market that is allegedly the original source of the disease. Surely, independent international researchers have been allowed into those labs to be sure that they are not the source of the outbreak? The opposite. From Gordon Chang in the German publication Die Weltwoche, March 31: “No one has been able to study it. How can you say it’s not a release from a lab if you can’t go to the lab? Indeed, we have seen Beijing do its best to prevent virologists and epidemiologist from actually going to Wuhan.”

And finally, we have China’s ongoing preposterous reporting as to numbers of cases and deaths. You’ll be happy to know — from the Worldometers site — that China has reported the following as deaths from the virus so far during the month of April: April 1, 6 deaths; April 2, 4; April 3, 4; April 4, 3; and April 5 (today), 2. Sure.

Of course thinking people are going to conclude from these facts that the most likely explanation is that the virus escaped from one of the two Wuhan research labs. And also that on matters of critical importance, China cannot be trusted to deal honestly and fairly with its co-members of the world community of nations.

Do the Chinese leaders really think they are doing themselves a favor by conducting this appalling cover-up? The truth is, besides the enormous damage they have done to the world economy, they have also done incalculable damage to themselves. It could take decades for China to regain the trust it had been slowly building. Likely, the rebuilding of the trust cannot begin in earnest until Mr. Xi has resigned.