Simone: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Zooming In China. I’m Simone Gao. The Biden administration has predicted that science, not intelligence, would be the key to discovering the origin of the COVID-19. What does that mean? The CCP influenced WHO’s first COVID origin report and claimed that the virus came from America’s biological weapons program. However, the CCP is extremely afraid of one thing. What is it? Here’s part two of my discussion with Dr. Sean Lin, former lab director of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. It’s very interesting you said that, because as we mentioned before, you said that the evidence should come from intelligence, but the Biden administration said because we lack of enough evidence from the intelligence community, and we are not likely to obtain more evidence from the intelligence community, we have to decide on science to, to figure out whether this is lab-made or from nature.
Dr. Lin: Well, I think he’s actually self-conflicting because if it is a scientifical investigation why would you give a 90-days deadline for these kinds of scientific research, right? If it’s scientific issues you take decades for people to figure out where the virus originated. It probably will involve collecting sample even in the wider scales. A more scientific community need to be engaged in it. And there could be a lot of hypotheses, a lot of testing on different potentials in terms of scientific investigation. But for intelligence regarding about the origin, the outbreak, is different issue. And even satellite images can give you a lot of clues, right? Even insiders can give you a direct evidence. And so I think the 90-days deadline only makes sense that it is the intelligence probe, not scientific probing. So that’s why I think these CNN reports actually probably finding excuses for the administration to not release the report in a timely manner as originally planned.
Simone: Hmm. You think it’s not gonna be released on August 26th?
Dr. Lin: It’s likely. It’s likely. And if it did release, maybe they are not making any conclusive statements regarding the outcome of the investigation. And I saw the news that the administration rejected Republicans’ request for the intelligence community to to release more information regarding the virus origins. So I, I hope they can reconsider that.
Simone: Right, right. That’s another big question, because the Biden administration said we don’t have enough intelligence currently, we don’t have enough intelligence evidence to tell the origin of the virus. But, on the other hand, the Republican side said, you know, from the intelligence community’s evidence, we have already concluded, this is very likely from a gain of function experiment that leaked from the lab as, as said by, uh, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. When I interviewed him, he said this to me as well. So, what is your take on this? Does the intelligence community have enough evidence you think that will give us a pretty good idea where the virus come from?
Dr. Lin: Well, I believe that the intelligence community in the United States have collected ample evidence, even though they are circumstantial, but there are ample evidence suggesting there was a potential leak from Wuhan Institute of Virology in probably September 2019, right? So, from the report from the China Task Force in the United States Congress, we can see indirect circumstantial evidence and probably more informations. Uh that’s why the former Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe told the media that he believed United States intelligence have ample evidence, you know, to, to make a conclusion. But at the same time, I also believe they are all circumstantial right now. And so but I don’t think the current administration have a strong determination in bringing out the results to the public. Even in the CNN report when they talk about the team of investigations, they are short on manpower, they are missing people who understanding Chinese and also experts in biology fields. And, and I think actually they’re more like excuses because even in a research institute that I worked before, it’s a unit under the DoD, um we have a pipeline to analyze large quantity of datas. We can analyze tens of thousands of virus samples especially genome samples, very quickly. And especially you are, you are very clear what you are looking for, right? Even there, there are more than 22,000 genome sequencing datas. You can set up the parameter, you can quickly identify how many samples are coronavirus, how many samples are bat coronavirus, uh, any of them having very interesting, unique features in the spike proteins. All these can be done quickly. And there are other virologists who have clearance also can understand Mandarin as well, even though there are not many, but you can identify these kind of experts. And as long as the team is open to these kinds of collaborations, I think the result can be brought up very quickly. So, that’s why I think the CNN report pretty much just finding the excuse right now, and I’m worried that,uadministration don’t have a real solid determination, want to,ureveal the results to the public. That’s what I worry about.
Simone: Right. Right. Why is that?
Dr. Lin: Because I think this is related to the current administration’s foreign policy related to China, and especially they are not treating the Communist Party as rivals. They still want to collaborate, uh with the Communist Party on certain aspects, just like a climate changes, right? So, if you want to collaborate, you have to give some rooms for the Communist Party and maybe have some compromise for the Communist Party and especially for the original of outbreak issues. Um, if the investigation showing the Chinese government is covering up the outbreak covering up the potential lab leak, so of course, if that happens Chinese government will be held accountable for what they did the damage to the whole international community. So, that will be too huge a crime, and Chinese government don’t want to see that. And the Biden administration may not want to get to their results if they still want the collaboration with Communist regime in certain aspect. And that’s why I’m worried about the results might not come in a timely manner.
Simone: I see. I see. Well, as you know according to the person who broke the story of the alleged Chinese defactor Dong Jingwei, according to him, Dong Jingwei also exposed a number of, uh, I mean, I don’t know how many, but a number of intelligence community members who are compromised by the CCP. I mean, there could be intelligence community members or there could be politicians. Do you think that played a role as well? Why this probe might not go very smoothly?
Dr. Lin: You put out a very, very critical information, and definitely Chinese government have been working on infiltration in the United States political circle, academia circles intelligence communities for a long time, for decades. And even nowadays, right? For example, in United States Congress, people being questioned about why Congressman Swalwell was still in a House intelligence committee while the intelligence agencies are very clear that he has connection, has a relationship with a Chinese spy. How could that be possible? And there was a saying in the town of Washington, D.C., saying that the town, half was controlled by Saudi Arabia and half was controlled by the Communist Party. Right? So, that’s maybe a little bit exaggeration, but it clearly tell you how powerful the China lobby works in Washington, D.C., And, and there are so many uh Chinese spies being sent out to the United States and FBI director Christopher Lacy, all mentioned that the FBI been working heavily on China spy cases. Every 10 hours, they have a new case regarding Chinese, uh spies. So many Chinese spies in so many fields, and especially in biotechnology field. And so it’s likely even many of the scientists working together with the Chinese government, they may be trained in United States and then they can brought the datas back to China, or even, you know, still working with Chinese government agency while they’re working with the United States government research institute or academia. So, there are all kinds of ways the Chinese government can steal the information from the United States and with political inference, with political infiltration. So, of course the Chinese government can mobilize these kinds of forces to interfere with the investigation process and try to make Chinese government escape the international criticisms regarding their covering up of the outbreak.
Simone: Yeah. You know, it’s very interesting, the Biden administration has expressed the possibility of launching another investigation if this one proves inconclusive, but it is unclear whether a decision has been made or not. So I mean, what is your take on this? Is it possible that they will do this all over again and will the second one yield any ground-breaking conclusions?
Dr. Lin: I think another investigation will only serve for the Chinese Communist Party as additional procrastinating tours because Chinese government definitely want the international society to be trapped into the scientifical questioning of where the virus come from, right? Because it always take decades to investigate how the virus originated, will be there animal reservoirs, how many animals can be reservoirs which one will be the intermediate animal reservoirs and who are the patient zeros in different countries? These can be a lot resource and, time-consuming process, right? So, Chinese government want it to be that way. And if Biden administration want to launch another investigation Chinese government will be happy about it. And, and that also tells that the current administration, they are not confident in releasing part of the report from these 90-days investigation even though the intelligence community probably had a lot of very useful, very powerful information already, but if the administration don’t have the, but if the leadership doesn’t have the will and the determination to expose the CCP’s crime, then everything can change.
Simone: So, it’s very worrisome based on what you said, if the Biden administration is insist on this, uh, scientific approach, this could be a non-ending game, forever-going game to probe, you know, to try to find the origin of the virus, which the CCP will be very happy about. Right?
Dr. Lin: Definitely CCP set up this kind of trap for international society to investigate this origin of virus for decades. You can put a lot of resource manpower on it without any clear results, and CCP knows that. That’s why for nowadays, their political narratives is to shift the brain to the United States, blaming United States military, blaming Fort Detrick. They can play this game all day long, and they know the more they play in it the more obscure the whole landscape is, right? And other international communities, other countries may not be so sure, uh, what kind of information the U.S. Got, and many countries may be wobbling in, in supporting additional investigations. So, it’s just help make whole things more complicated. CCP will be happy about it. And as long as they can procrastinate the whole process, it will serve the Communist Party really well. And at the same time they can work more aggressively in developing more mutant virus and Chinese government building more P3 research lab. That’s like building more Pandora box inside China. The Chinese government has ordered every province to build up more P3 research lab. You can even, you can see even for the top research lab in Wuhan, Institute of Virology, cannot guarantee their safety operations. And how could, how could the Chinese government guarantee the safety of more P3 research labs in different province?
Simone: Yeah, that’s just incredible. That’s scary. In your opinion, if the Chinese Communist Party will be happy about this scientific approach probe about the virus origin is there an area that the CCP will not be very happy about if the U.S. Goes on that route?
Dr. Lin: I think what is lethal to the Chinese Communist Party is to expose how did they cover the outbreak in Wuhan. Um why they did not let whole international community know earlier that the disease is human transmissible, human-to-human transmission very efficiently, and also how the government block Wuhan people go to other cities in China, while letting the Wuhan people, potentially infectious, to travel to other countries. This is like, uh, spreading virus to the world intentionally. And so this is actually very, very powerful aspect that the international society need to take a strong stand, to really criticize Chinese government on covering up the outbreak. And if the Chinese government can release information much earlier, then international society can have a lot of time to prepare have good efforts in prevention to make these things turn into a pandemic. So, the Chinese government definitely had the original sin to make the virus spreading to the whole world. I think this is more detrimental than a local cause the outbreak, whether it’s lab leak or not. Because lab leak a local outbreak, it happens in other countries as well, as long as you deal in it properly. As long as you inform other con depositing in other countries in a timely manner and other country can take effective measures to protect themselves. If you intentionally make it spread to the other world, then of course it become very, very hard to handle it. And you see, the virus has so many variants in other countries with poor public health infrastructures. Right? So it become a nightmare for the whole world.
Simone: Yeah. I think that’s why the Republicans’ report on, you know, that Wuhan lab, the pandemic actually probably started before September, 2019 is very important.
Dr. Lin: It’s very, very important.
Simone: Yeah, because I mean, basically I think it’s a manslaughter or premeditated murder kind of a comparison. If they really just got to know about this virus, the outbreak, in late December, I mean the end of December and I mean the start of December, and they only know that this human transmissible on December, December 20th, then, you know, by January, the virus has already spread to the world. It leaves some very few days to, to do the right thing. So, maybe they’re just, maybe they just didn’t know what to do there. They had like a poor management skills and stuff like that. But if they knew in September, then it leaves them like 3, 4 months to prepare to think about what to deal with, how to deal with it. If they still decided, you know, that Wuhan people can travel to America, but not to Beijing, that would be a problem, right? That would be a big problem.
Dr. Lin: Yeah, it’s a huge problem. Even if Chinese government take, uh, strong measures in early January to block Wuhan people travel to all the world, it can make a big difference. You know, right now the virus has like its own experiment field in so many different continents to find that more powerful varients, you know, higher transmissibilities maybe even higher pathogenicities. And so, the virus has the upper hand now. Once you spread the virus to global villages, it totally change the game. Because if you look at the history of other disease outbreak, whether it’s SARS, whether it’s MERS, whether it’s Zika virus, you all start from one local region, right? Even the most dangerous Ebola, it start from one local region, and it take awhile for the virus to adapt to the human community to further spread in the local before it can turn into a local endemic and then to a global pandemic. It takes awhile even for the pandemic flu, it takes awhile for it to spread globally, but this time the virus, the SARS-CoV-2 just quickly spread to so many different continents and incubating different continents. So of course, so the human society become very, very challenging to, to deal with the virus, to defeat the virus. It just changed the game fundamentally. That’s why I call it its original sin when the Chinese Communist Party spread the virus to the whole world.
Simone: Yeah. The coverup is a premeditated murder, I would say.
Dr. Lin: Yeah. I agree.
Simone: Yeah. Okay, uh, Dr. Lin, these are my questions. Do you have anything else to add?
Dr. Lin: I was just want to emphasizing that the whole world need to see clearly what CCP has done to the whole world, not to be trapped into a so-called scientific investigation of the origin of virus. Need to keep in mind, we just talk about the origin of the outbreak, need to hold CCP accountable for what they cover up. That’s my messaging. Thank you.
Simone: Okay. Thank you, Dr. Lin.
Dr. Lin: Thank you.
Simone: That’s it for today. As you know, we released a documentary movie on The Clean Network last week. It is part two of a documentary series called The American Dream Takes On China, Inc. That tells the story of former Under Secretary of State Keith Krach leading a group of Silicon Valley veterans beating the CCP in the economic battlefield. We first published it on our membership website. Now it’s available on our YouTube channel. So, be sure to check it out. And if you like our production, please sign up for our membership website or donate to us. Our website is zoomingin.tv. Thanks for watching. I’m Simone Gao, and I’ll see you next time.