Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich has written:
Watching the Chinese Communist dictatorship mismanage an epidemic, cover it up, and then lie about it has been infuriating. But it is also a good lesson in how dangerous and how profoundly dishonest the dictatorship is.
China’s guilt at having allowed a local epidemic to turn into a worldwide pandemic is even more infuriating when the Chinese Foreign Ministry publicly alleges that the coronavirus came from America. Both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have correctly pushed back hard against the Communist dictatorship’s lies.
The simple fact is that Communist-ruled China has a long record as a source of potential epidemics and pandemics.
In 2005 Laurie Garrett warned in Foreign Affairs: “Scientists have long forecast the appearance of an influenza virus capable of infecting 40 percent of the world’s human population and killing unimaginable numbers. Recently, a new strain, H5N1 avian influenza, has shown all the earmarks of becoming that disease. Until now, it has largely been confined to certain bird species, but that may be changing.”
Then in 2007, four scientists at the University of Hong Kong asserted:
“Coronaviruses are well known to undergo genetic recombination, which may lead to new genotypes and outbreaks. The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb. The possibility of the reemergence of SARS and other novel viruses from animals or laboratories and therefore the need for preparedness should not be ignored.”
Despite these clear warnings, the Chinese communist government did nothing to stop the sale of wild animals in wet markets or to stay adequately alert for a potential virus.
In fact, the dictatorship took the opposite position in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak. It wanted to hide any potential disease outbreak and hoped it would go away. Consider the tragic chronology of the coronavirus pandemic.
The first confirmed case was noticed on December 8, 2019, according to the Wuhan government. By Dec. 16, a patient was admitted to the hospital who worked at a wildlife market that was affiliated with the outbreak.
By Dec. 21, there were about three dozen people showing similar symptoms (which were later found to be confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases). By Christmas, four days later, the medical staff at two separate hospitals were quarantined when they came down with an unidentified viral pneumonia.
Apparently by the day after Christmas, Dec. 26, 2019 a laboratory had identified samples from Wuhan as a new SARS-like virus. The next day Wuhan public health officials and hospital leaders were told that there was a new coronavirus causing the illness.
This was the moment.
If the dictatorship had decided then and there to call in the experts and focus on containing the new threat, the entire world would have been spared a year of pain, thousands of dead, massive costs, and economic collapse.
However, dictatorships all too often reject and suppress bad news. Just as the Soviets initially tried to suppress the news of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, so too did Gen. Secretary Xi Jinping’s police state initially tried to suppress the news instead of trying to suppress the disease.
When Dr. Ai Fen, the head of the emergency department at Wuhan Central Hospital, shared a picture of lab test results and a video of lung scans on Dec. 30, she was harshly reprimanded. When Dr. Li Wenliang disseminated information about the virus through posts on WeChat in a group with more than 100 of his classmates from medical school that said there were “7 SARS like cases confirmed from the Hua’nan Seafood Market,” the government reaction was to censor the spread of this information and take it out of social media.
On the last day of the year, 23 days after the apparent first confirmed patient started showing symptoms, the Wuhan branch of the National Health Commission said, “The investigation so far has not found any obvious human-to-human transmission or infection of medical staff.” Officials claimed, “The disease is preventable and controllable.”
The Times of London reported that by late Dec. 2019, laboratories in China discovered an unknown highly infectious virus, but “were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples, and suppress the news.”
On the first day of 2020, in an effort to keep others quiet and stop information from spreading, eight whistleblowers, including Dr. Li, were issued summons by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and brought in for questioning for posting information about the virus on WeChat.
The police detention was widely reported in the media. Medical professionals all got the message to stay quiet about the disease.
Ironically (and tragically) by Jan. 2, the Wuhan Institute of Virology identified and mapped genome of a new coronavirus – but it was kept secret.
By Jan. 6, the rumors were strong enough that Secretary Azar and CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield offered to send a team to China. The dictatorship didn’t accept the offer.
However, it is clear Gen. Secretary Xi knew about the virus by Jan. 7 – about the time the Americans were offering to help. By Jan. 9, the Chinese government was admitting they had a virus and announced they had mapped the genetic sequence but did not release the data until Jan. 12. They did not however reveal critical information about who was sick, when they got sick, and critical demographic information about those infected, so evaluation of the outbreak remained inadequate.
Jan. 12 was also the day Dr. Li, who had been reprimanded for reporting on the virus, was hospitalized for contracting coronavirus.
On Jan. 13 the first case was reported outside of China in Thailand.
The next day, on Jan. 14, the World Health Organization continued its recent behavior of protecting dictatorships. It announced that Chinese authorities have witnessed “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.” The World Health Organization continued its recent pattern of lying for dictators when an official said during a press conference that day that there could also be “limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families.”
On Jan. 15, the first confirmed US infected patient left Wuhan while Li Qun (the head of China CDC emergency center) said on state television “after careful screening and prudent judgment, we have reached the latest understanding that the risk of human-to-human transmission is low.”
Finally, on Jan. 20 China confirmed human-to-human transmission and the first case was announced in South Korea.
The Chinese dictatorship’s efforts to suppress and deny the reality of the virus came at tremendous human cost to the Chinese people and to the rest of the world.
An analysis by the University of Southampton estimated that 95 percent of the infections would have been avoided if the aggressive intervention had only occurred three weeks (not three months, three weeks) earlier than they had.
The amount of the damage the Chinese dictatorship has done to its own people and by letting the epidemic get out of control and turn into a pandemic – and the amount of damage it has done to people around the world – is stunning.
One courageous (and maybe foolish) Chinese businessman, Ren Zhiqiang, wrote a direct critique of the Communist dictatorship:
“Those who live in a democratic country with freedom of speech perhaps don’t know the pain of the lack of a free press and free expression. But Chinese people know that this epidemic and all the unnecessary suffering it brought came directly from a system that strictly prohibits the freedom of press and speech.”
The New York Times reported on March 14 that he is missing.
Faced with growing worldwide condemnation for mismanaging and spreading the coronavirus, the dictatorship decided to create a propaganda campaign blaming America.
On March 12 Hua Chunying who is the head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of Information, tweeted that it was “absolutely wrong and inappropriate to call this the Chinese coronavirus.”
Then, they went a step further. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, also tweeted on March 12 “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”
By the way, Twitter is banned in China.
As a final note to this whole dishonest performance, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, the Chinese supported Director-General of the World Health Organization praised the Chinese handling of the virus. He said:
“We appreciate the seriousness with which China is taking this outbreak, especially the commitment from top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstrated, including sharing data and genetic sequence of the virus. WHO is working closely with the government on measures to understand the virus and limit transmission. WHO will keep working side-by-side with China and all other countries to protect health and keep people safe.”
Dr. Adhanom won the job with Chinese backing even though he was accused of covering up three different cholera epidemics as health minister in Ethiopia. He is a reminder of the unending Chinese dictatorship’s corruption and dishonesty.[2]
We are at war; and China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, is the face of our enemy. Make no mistake about it.[3] As I have written:
The United States and the American people are to freedoms what China and its totalitarian regime under Xi are to repression: night-and-day differences. Xi is America’s enemy; and at the very least, he and China must be crushed economically.
. . .
Have Xi and his Chinese leadership jumpstarted their attacks on the West by unleashing the Coronavirus? Is this the “time bomb” that will allow Xi to accomplish his goals during his lifetime, before passing the torch to his successors? Is this really what the Chinese virus, or the Coronavirus, is really all about?
If so, then we must wage the war with every ounce of courage and determination that Americans used to destroy Hitler’s Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union’s brand of communism too.[4]
China launched the Coronavirus intentionally or inadvertently, and it must pay reparations to Americans; U.S. businesses and other organizations, both large and small; our federal, state and local governments; and to the world for having done so—which will likely run into many trillions of dollars. A global boycott of China must be instituted and implemented, permanently destroying its evil regime. Nothing less will suffice.
Lastly, if anyone we know dies or suffers in any way because of the Coronavirus, we know whom to blame.
© 2020, Timothy D. Naegele
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-20-1-1.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
[2] See https://www.gingrich360.com/2020/03/china-infects-the-world-then-lies-and-blames-america/ (“China Infects the World, Then Lies and Blames America”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/20/expert-warns-quarantine-process-failed-as-china-stands-ready-to-crash-world-economy/#comment-23560 (“China’s Hitler, And Beyond The Coronavirus Crisis”)
[3] See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/20/expert-warns-quarantine-process-failed-as-china-stands-ready-to-crash-world-economy/#comment-23571 (“We Are At War”)
[4] Id.
NaegeleBlog 
An excellent and exhaustive timeline that perfectly describes the CCP and WHO for the despicable people they really are. The WHO must continue to be exposed for what they are are must stop being funded by the US or all other free world nations.
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Well said, Alan. I agree completely.
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It is not clear whether this all originated in those markets or, more unsettlingly, from one of the two major labs in Wuhan involved in the study of (dangerous) viruses. Certainly, the CCP virus has caused panic and destruction all over the world. Perhaps a tax or additional tariff should be imposed on Chinese manufactured goods, including those assembled for US and other countries’ multinational companies. Whether this is possible depends on the upcoming elections.
The WHO is not blameless in all of this, and neither are the media and so much of the political class. The absurd Russia, Ukraine, etc… investigations filled the information space. When Taiwan was busy initiating testing of travellers from mainland China (late December or early January) the US was glued to news about impeachment. It is impossible to say at this point, but had the country, and the world, not been so fixated on those insane hoaxes things may have been very different. Just look at how Taiwan has done in dealing with the CCP virus, without closing down their country. Of course, this does not let the CCP off the hook.
The situation is quite dire. US companies are addicted to Chinese manufacturing and that is unlikely to change overnight, if at all. You need only follow the money. The globalists were quite willing to sacrifice the lives of so many works in order to maximize profits. In the process the world has allowed China to become an indispensable manufacturing hub. So much money is involved that it wouldn’t be surprising to see an unprecedented coalition assembled to ensure the defeat of President Trump in November. He is after all one of the few people who might make a dent in this increasing reliance on mainland China.
What I am trying to say is that there is plenty of blame to go around. Certainly the CCP is at the root, but there are so many more who should be held to account, but probably won’t.
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Thank you, Philip, for your fine and insightful comments.
In many ways, Pat Buchanan would agree with you. But both he and I believe China will pay dearly for what it has done, or not done.
See “When It’s Over, Will We Be the Same America?”
https://buchanan.org/blog/when-its-over-will-we-be-the-same-america-138378
Americans have a way of not forgetting, at least in the relatively short run. For example, they boycotted Japanese and German cars for many years after World War II.
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