Coronavirus Pandemic Conspiracy Theories: Was it the US, or China itself? | War Strategies


Coronavirus Pandemic Conspiracy, Coronavirus outbreak, Coronavirus disease 2019, War Strategies

Coronavirus pandemic conspiracy theories are not the new concept anymore. Some segments of society including some politicians in China and the US believe that the virus causing this pandemic may be a modified version of previous coronaviruses that was prepared using level-4 bio-safety lab. Both countries blame each other for the spread of the virus. Leaders of some other countries have also raised questions about the current coronavirus outbreak. The current coronavirus outbreak has caused over 14000 deaths across the world with the highest number of deaths in Italy, Spain, China, and Iran. Almost the whole world is partially locked down with limited economic activities.

A new leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard core (IRGC) also claimed that the coronavirus outbreak is actually biological warfare used by China. Iranian leader stated that everyone knew that this virus came from China and has affected the Iranian regime much harder. This seemed to be a bizarre statement as China itself is hit hard and suffered a lot due to coronavirus (Young, 2020). But, the interesting point to be noted here is that why would Iran blame China for all this? Iran needs China to buy Iranian Oil in black. Moreover, Iran also needs Chinese cooperation and technology in many other sectors as well. Still, Iran has held China responsible for this outbreak. In this scenario, Iranian allegations over China raise serious questions.

The official stance of the Chinese government on the current coronavirus outbreak is that the coronavirus initiated from a seafood market in Wuhan. It is important to note that animals including rats, snakes, foxes, koalas, peacocks, wolf, and salamanders do not interact ordinarily with each other in this market. This stance becomes a bit confusing because of one of the studies on the current outbreak.

A study conducted by Huang et al. showed that the first 3 infections of coronavirus reported in early December could not find any link to the food market in Wuhan. Similarly, the 11 cases among the next 41 cases analyzed were also not connected to the Wuhan food market. These findings indicate that the true reason for virus spread may be different than officially reported. It looks like the strain that infected human beings across the world emerged earlier than it was officially reported (Huang et al., 2020). Some of the most relevant theories regarding virus spread are discussed below.

Theory-1 (China is allegedly responsible)
The first theory holds China responsible for the release of the coronavirus. The virus was carried to china from Canada in a mysterious ship. Canada's NML Winnipeg facility received the virus from Dutch lab in 2013 in order to grow the stocks of this virus for assessing the diagnostic tests. The transfer of viruses to China resulted in a major scandal where Bio-warfare researchers showed their concerns regarding the transfer of lethal virus to China.

The investigation of the event identified Chinese agents working for the NML laboratory. The group of Chinese virologists was forcibly dispatched from the Canadian NML laboratory. Xiangguo Qiu was a scientist at the NML laboratory and worked there with her husband who was also a biologist. These scientists (husband and wife) along with another agent were dispatched after these allegations (GreatGameIndia, 2020).
Qiu worked at the NML laboratory as the head of the vaccine development team. Chinese Biological warfare laboratories allegedly collaborated with Dr. Qiu. Qiu made about five trips to Wuhan National Biosafety Lab of the Academy of sciences between 2017 and 2018. Interestingly, this laboratory is situated just 20 miles away from the seafood market from where the coronavirus spread initiated. This shows the interest of the Chinese military in biological weapons as the emerging domain of warfare. This theory strongly believes that the current virus is manmade. China stole it from the Canadian laboratory to use it in biological weapons. But, unfortunately, the virus was accidentally released, before it could be used as a weapon, because of security lapse in the laboratory (Mosher, 2020).

Theory 2
The second prevailing conspiracy theory holds the dominant Western powers responsible for the current coronavirus outbreak. According to this opinion, the US and its allies are trying to pressurize China to contain its increasing influence and power. These concerns have been expressed by the spokesman of the foreign ministry of China. Zhao Lijian, in his tweet, shared his concerns by blaming the US army for introducing the coronavirus in China. He further said that 300 athletes of the US army participated in 7th Military world games in October that were held in Wuhan. The foreign ministry of China claimed that infected athletes were deliberately sent to China to let the virus spread in Wuhan (Li, 2020).

Mr. Zhao indicated that disease may have initiated in the US. He claimed that patient zero might have been found in the US. However, he could not identify the name of the hospital or the number of patients who were infected in the US (Myers, 2020).  If these claims are believed to be right, then the possibility of US soldiers bringing the virus to China may have some weight. It is also a fact that genetic engineering of coronavirus has been happening in military and medical labs for decades. The US also has 13 bio-safety level-4 labs that research and work on easily transmitted pathogens causing fatal diseases. The operations of these laboratories also support the idea of unnatural production of coronavirus.

Moreover, the research scientists believe that such types of viruses rarely jump species barrier without any external assistance like human involvement. Thus, the chances of this virus being a natural viral element are extremely low. The investigation has also shown the zero association of subsequent cases with the seafood market in Wuhan. This also reduces the chances of accidental release of this virus from the Chinese laboratory (Pakistan Defence Forum, 2020). Some previous incidents also indicate the possibility of human involvement in such mysterious situations. For example, the collapse of China’s pig farm industry in 2019 was propagated through drones where these drones sprayed the pigs with flu (Metallicman, 2020).

Russian biochemists also believe that the current coronavirus outbreak is a result of human involvement. It is allegedly believed that this act was aimed at isolating China from the rest of the world. But, this went wrong at some stage, and virus spread across the world. Some incidents were also reported in China where some Americans were caught collecting Chinese DNA samples (Metallicman, 2020). These facts indicate that America may be waging a biological war with China. But, this time it is really serious. It may be far worse than even WWI and WWII. This time it is done without any of Act of War or Congressional approval.

Conclusions
Keeping in view the facts and incidents that have happened during the last three or four months, it can be believed that there can be three possible reasons behind the spread of the current coronavirus. The first possibility is that the current outbreak was natural that initiated from the seafood market in Wuhan. But, some studies have challenged this fact as they found no association of subsequent cases with this market. So, the other theory that originates is that it was an accidental release from the Chinese Biosafety laboratory situated near the Wuhan seafood market. But, as it is believed that such types of viruses rarely jump species barrier, it may be believed that the claims of China are true regarding the alleged involvement of the US troops in spreading this virus.

Both theories may be given importance for an instance. Although various incidents indicate some sort of conspiracy, some of the supporting links are still missing that could validate these theories. And if it is true, this reflects that the bilateral economic dispute between two strong countries has put the safety of the whole world at stake. But, irrespective of the factors behind this outbreak, the situation has gone out of control and the world powers have been unable to manage it so far. Even the world super powers have no answer to this deadly virus despite having facilities of testing and experimenting these types of viruses. Now, various efforts are being made to develop some vaccine, in order to manage the possible consequences of this disease, that may take months.






Sources
GreatGameIndia, 2020. Coronavirus Bioweapon - How China Stole Coronavirus From Canada And Weaponized It | Greatgameindia. [online] GreatGameIndia. Available at: <https://greatgameindia.com/coronavirus-bioweapon/> [Accessed 25 March 2020].
Huang, C., Wang, Y., Li, X., Ren, L., Zhao, J., Hu, Y., Zhang, L., Fan, G., Xu, J., Gu, X. and Cheng, Z., 2020. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The Lancet, 395(10223), pp.497-506.
Li, J., 2020. A Conspiracy Theory Linking The US Army To The Coronavirus Now Has Official Chinese Endorsement. [online] Quartz. Available at: <https://qz.com/1817736/china-fuels-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-blaming-us-army/> [Accessed 25 March 2020].
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Mosher, S., 2020. Don’T Buy China’S Story: The Coronavirus May Have Leaked From A Lab. [online] Nypost.com. Available at: <https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/> [Accessed 25 March 2020].
Myers, S., 2020. China Spins Tale That The U.S. Army Started The Coronavirus Epidemic. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-china-conspiracy-theory.html> [Accessed 25 March 2020].
Pakistan Defence Forum, 2020. Was Coronavirus An Engineered Biological Attack On China By America. [online] Pakistan Defense. Available at: <https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/was-coronavirus-an-engineered-biological-attack-on-china-by-america.653718/> [Accessed 26 March 2020].
Young, J., 2020. An Iranian Leader Says That The Coronavirus Is A Chinese Biological Weapon Of Mass Destruction. [online] VCY America. Available at: <https://www.vcyamerica.org/prophecy-today/2020/03/12/an-iranian-leader-says-that-the-coronavirus-is-a-chinese-biological-weapon-of-mass-destruction-2/> [Accessed 25 March 2020].

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