A virologist blames a Wuhan lab for COVID-19
The China Letter: September 17, 2020
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Science study goes viral
Claims about a Chinese coronavirus cover-up by virologist Li-Meng Yan were posted on the open-access website Zenodo, although it hasn’t been validated by peer review. Nonetheless, her description of how it originated in a Wuhan lab gained headlines, followed by her claim of being suspended by Twitter for whistleblowing on social media.
Running out the clock
TikTok struck a deal with software company Oracle for its American operations, but the proposal faces a snag because Chinese owner ByteDance expects to retain a minority stake, which includes not selling the algorithm. Beijing recently imposed controls around exporting certain technologies.
Meanwhile, the group APT41 is accused by the state department of stealing source code, customer data and other business information from multiple countries, which involved setting up a fake network security company. The fraud allegedly targeted the video game industry before expanding its espionage with the enthusiasm of China.
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School’s out for some
“We continue to welcome legitimate students and scholars from China who do not further the Chinese Communist Party’s goals of military dominance,” said the U.S. state department after the revocation of more than 1,000 education-related visas. Beijing denounced the move as a human rights abuse targeted at academics.
A movie made of issues
Fallout from the discovery that Disney’s live-action Mulan was partly shot near detention camps in Xinjiang crashed into a generally poor reception in China. But it’s had the effect of amplifying how much of Hollywood is now deferring to the ways of Beijing:
“So while we’re going, ‘Can we say this joke, can we not say that joke,’ on a much bigger level, they have just completely shut down critical content about human rights abuses in China, and I think that’s much scarier,” Judd Apatow said in this interview with MSNBC.
The last words, for now
John Boyega quit his role as global ambassador for aftershave brand Jo Malone upon learning that an award-winning commercial he created was reshot without him for the Chinese market—while the other Black people in the spot were also notably removed. The actor received an apology for the alterations, but this wasn’t his first time:
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