Chapter 2
On January 3rd 2020, after a week of rumors of a new SARS outbreak on social media, a memo from the National Health Commission, one of China’s executive departments of the State Council, ordered the shutdown of all outbreak communication. Ostensibly to thwart false rumors. It made the life of scientists harder. “If I did something wrong in the last three years, I cannot change history. If you tell me George, you did this or that wrong in 2020… I know, we have some lessons to learn, but that is not our Chinese culture to say. We only say we learn experience [sic], not learn lessons.”, George Gao, the then head of the Chinese Center for Disease control, tells me in a rare personal interview. Yet an informational vacuum creates room for speculation, and opportunity for bad actors.
Especially in Hong Kong, a city fighting for its democratic governance against an encroaching superpower, ideas of a Chinese cover-up of a more malicious “man-made” disaster fell on fertile grounds and spread like wildfire. "SARS was a generational trauma for Hong Kong, this was not our first fucking rodeo", Jasnah Kholin, an unvarnished corona virologist in Hong Kong who prefers to protect her identity, told me. “We were all craving somebody to blow the lid off this thing” Yet when an alleged whistleblower by the name of Dr. Li-Meng Yan appeared and became a rightwing media sensation, something felt off. Jasnah knew Li-Meng well, as did her former boss, the SARS veteran Prof. Leo Poon. They observed the former postdoc take center stage in a well-funded, organized and malicious bioweapon disinformation campaign, sponsored by American political activists including the former presidential advisor Steve Bannon. His operation was the first, but of course not the only ones who tapped into the political moment. Beijing’s mantle of silence did not extinguish the growing fire, it fueled the flames.
References:
Some good reporting on George Gao and the early pandemic response
Page, J. and Wei, L. (2020, August 17). China’s CDC, Built to Stop Pandemics Like Covid, Stumbled When It Mattered Most. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/chinas-cdc-built-to-stop-pandemics-stumbled-when-it-mattered-most-11597675108
First media reports on January 4 mention that there is a BSL-4 lab in Wuhan.
Branswell, H. (2020, January 4). Experts search for answers in limited information about mystery pneumonia outbreak in China. STAT. https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/04/mystery-pneumonia-outbreak-china/
After this, some Hong Kong individuals have posited there is a connection between the outbreak and the lab, but this did not gain any larger traction. (But this is how the first bioweapon hashtag appeared)
Garbo Gurung [@GarboHK]. (2020a, January 4). X (Formerly Twitter). https://archive.is/hWyRE “18 years ago, #China killed nearly 300 #HongKongers by unreporting #SARS cases, letting Chinese tourists travel around the world, to Asia specifically to spread the virus with bad intention. Today the evil regime strikes again with a new virus. #Wuhan #ChinesePneumonia #bioweapon”
Garbo Gurung [@GarboHK]. (2020b, January 5). X (Formerly Twitter). https://x.com/GarboHK/status/1213720927894200325 “Fun fact: The first level 4 Bio-Safety Lab in #China is located in #Wuhan. #Bioweapon”
The hunger for CCP-independent sources of information in Chinese is real; and the Chinese diaspora often fell for fake news distributed by Guo Wengui’s network.
Amy Qin [@amyyqin]. (2020, November 20). X (Formerly Twitter). https://x.com/amyyqin/status/1329740567853420547
14) Finally, I didn't know until now the extent of Guo's popularity in the Chinese diaspora. The hunger for non-CCP media is real & there are fewer & fewer reliable sources of info in Chinese. This should be a concern for us all. Our story in Chinese
First Miles Guo video stream happened January 17/18 on GTV (picked up and covered by Lu De two days later), the ideas were amplified by bot networks using the exact same copy-paste of this original message that would be shown by Gnews again on january 25 as evidence:
路德 (Lu de) [@ding_gang]. (2020, January 18). Web Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20200118155832/https://twitter.com/ding_gang/status/1218547052084441088 独家重磅给路德爆料：
武汉的类SARS冠状病毒就是来源于中共军方2018年从舟山蝙蝠身上发现并分离的新型冠状病毒。如图改病毒序列可以在美国国立卫生研究院的基因数据库找到（NIH的GenBank)，由南京军区军事医学科学研究所递交。并且通过技术故意更改舟山蝙蝠病毒，适于人类传播的新病毒。
One of the many bot accounts:
Teah [@Teah70677104]. (2020, January 18). X (Formerly Twitter). https://x.com/Teah70677104/status/1218560987026132994 虎啸东方独家重磅给路德爆料： 武汉的类SARS冠状病毒就是来源于中共军方2018年从舟山蝙蝠身上发现并分离的新型冠状病毒。如图改病毒序列可以在美国国立卫生研究院的基因数据库找到（NIH的GenBank)，由南京军区军事医学科学研究所递交。并且通过技术故意更改舟山蝙蝠病毒，适于人类传播的新病毒
路德社LUDE Media. (2020, January 19). 1/19/2020 路安艾时评:重磅!为什么财新胡舒立要一再否认武汉SARS病毒和舟山蝙蝠病毒的关联性?为什么该病毒已经进化具备人传人大爆发强变异?为什么中共要不断隐瞒确诊案例? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLTjg03CPEs
Scarlet’s version of the bioweapon myth seems to be concocted by using media reporting from Jan 11 in Hongkong, (李恩慈鄭. (2020, January 11). 【武漢肺炎】新病)【武漢肺炎】新病毒與千里之外舟山蝙蝠最似 專家：追查野味不易 (hk01.com) (This HK article was first reporting about SC2-related bat viruses found in 2018 (Hu et al.,) from Department of Epidemiology, College of Preventive Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing who was conducting work with the Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Using this Coronavirus paper from 2018 that was partially affiliated with a Chinese military institution of higher learning, a very spurious connection was created by Scarlet, as conspiratorial thinking prone people tend to do.)
The Guo network was not solely responsible by themselves, all around the world, actors tried to make use of the uncertainty and drama of the outbreak for their own political, financial or ideological goals. Jazeera, A. (2021, February 15). The ‘superspreaders’ behind COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/15/the-superspreaders-behind-covid-19-conspiracy-theories (Take as early example the Russian Igor Nikulin: He argues the US created the virus and used it to attack China. He first voiced the belief in a January 20, 2020, story by Zvezda, a state media outlet tied to the Russian military. He appeared on Russian state TV at least 18 times between January 27, 2020, and late April of that year. Once the virus reached the US, Nikulin changed his theory, saying “globalists” were using the virus to depopulate the Earth. Nikulin has expressed support for weaponising misinformation to hurt the US in the past. On his website, he suggests claiming the US created HIV as a way to weaken the country from within. Russian intelligence mounted a similar 1980s disinformation campaign dubbed “Operation INFEKTION.” “If you prove and declare … that the virus was bred in American laboratories, the American economy will collapse under the onslaught of billions of lawsuits by millions of AIDS carriers around the world,” Nikulin wrote on his website.)
QANON influencers like Jordan Sather were spreading a similar bioweapon myth Jan 20, blaming Bill Gates and claiming it is a psyops to distract from Trump's senate trial.
Jordan Sather [@Jordan_Sather_]. (2020, January 21). X (Formerly Twitter). https://twitter.com/Jordan_Sather_/status/1219795721286586368 “The new fad disease called the “coronavirus” is sweeping headlines.Funny enough, there was a patent for the coronavirus was filed in 2015 and granted in 2018. https://patents.justia.com/patent/10130701”
Another source of disinformation was close-knit anti-vaxx communities claiming the outbreak was a set up for profit. Staff, L. S. (2020, Jan 23). Fake news: Patent for coronavirus that expired is NOT for new strain killing people in China. Lead Stories. https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/01/fake-news-patent-for-coronavirus-that-expired-is-not-for-new-strain-killing-people-in-china.html
A nine-months investigation by DFRLab and Associated press: Weaponized: How rumors about COVID-19’s origins led to a narrative arms race. (2022, June 30). Issuu. https://issuu.com/atlanticcouncil/docs/weaponized-how-rumors-about-covid-19s-origins-led- (As part of a nine-month joint research project by the DFRLab and the Associated Press, this report examines the information environments of four countries – China, the United States, Russia, and Iran – during the first six months of the COVID-19 outbreak and the false narratives that took hold there. The report focuses on how varying, unverified, and outright false narratives that the virus was a bioweapon or the result of a lab accident spread globally on social media and beyond, and the geopolitical consequences of those narratives.)
The Daily mail was the first mass media superspreader who picked up the man-made narrative on Jan 23rd. Rahhal, N.. (2020, January 23). Wuhan, China’s coronavirus epicentre, has SARS and Ebola lab. Mail Online. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-lab-studying-SARS-Ebola-Wuhan-outbreaks-center.html (The Daily Mail published an article insinuating the virus could have leaked from a Chinese biosafety lab located in Wuhan. The story fell short from saying China had intentionally released the virus but cited an article published by Nature magazine in 2017 to claim that “Scientists warned in 2017 that a SARS-like virus could escape a lab set up that year in Wuhan, China, to study some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world.” The article was the first to receive significant interaction on social media, garnering 238,000 reactions, including more than 200,000 Facebook engagements, 29,000 retweets and 1,700 reddit mentions as of April 2020.)
More on the Chinese diaspora around Miles Guo from an insider (ABC australia reports):
Hui, E., & Cohen, H. (2020, November 1). They once peddled misinformation for Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon. Now they’re speaking out. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-01/behind-the-scenes-of-the-guo-and-bannon-led-propaganda-machine/12830824 (“Lude is the number one propagandist for Guo Wengui. His channel is today supported by Guo Wengui,” said John Pan, who was amongst Mr Guo’s inner circle until December 2019. This group, which started out with 18 members, discussed how to orchestrate viral media campaigns against the CCP. “We’re talking about how we would promote the information that Guo was leaking out, how we spread that information to the world. No matter [if it was] true or false,” said Mr Pan. Mr Guo once encouraged his key followers during the Hong Kong democracy protests in 2019 to spread a rumor that martial law was imminent in the territory. Lude Interview and Lude Times, have reached 143 million views (as of June 18, 2020))
Popular rightwing blogger and conspiracy theorist platform Zerohedge created an elaborate conspiracy theory ZeroHedge. (n.d.). ZeroHedge. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/coronavirus-contains-hiv-insertions-stoking-fears-over-artificially-created-bioweapon
Additional news reporting about the early days:
Pauls, K., & Yates, J. (2020, January 29). Online claims that Chinese scientists stole coronavirus from Winnipeg lab have “no factual basis.” CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/china-coronavirus-online-chatter-conspiracy-1.5442376
Kang, D., & Cheng, M. (2024, April 22). COVID-19: How the search for the pandemic’s origins turned poisonous | AP News. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/china-covid-virus-origins-pandemic-lab-leak-bed5ab50dca8e318ab00f60b5911da0c
Anatomy of a conspiracy: With COVID, China took leading role | The Asahi Shimbun Asia & Japan Watch. (n.d.). The Asahi Shimbun. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14191746
China clamps down in hidden hunt for coronavirus origins | AP News. (2020, December 30). AP News. https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandemic-china-only-on-ap-bats-24fbadc58cee3a40bca2ddf7a14d2955
Of note:
Jasnah Kholin – I could not help myself to figure out where this pseudonym came from. It is an homage to a character from a fantasy universe called the stormlight archives. Fittingly, this fictional character is exceptionally rude but a brilliant scholar and a member of the so called Veristitalians, an order of historians dedicated to reconstructing unbiased and factual accounts of the past in order to better understand the present.
Hong Kong dissident or not, I guess we all can take inspiration from fiction sometimes.