New details supporting the theory of a lab leak

The China Letter: October 31, 2022

For our last dispatch of October, a look at the explosive story about the Wuhan lab where COVID-19 is suspected to have leaked from, how the ongoing lockdowns in China are leading to new waves of protest, updates on secret police stations and the Communist Party Congress, and the significance of one giant panda reaching the end of his life.

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Wonderings about Wuhan

ProPublica @propublica

New: The Wuhan lab at the center of suspicions about the pandemic’s onset was far more troubled than known, documents unearthed by a Senate team reveal. Tracing the evidence, Vanity Fair and ProPublica give the clearest view yet of a biocomplex in crisis.

propub.liCOVID-19 Origins: Investigating a “Complex and Grave Situation” Inside a Wuhan LabThe Wuhan lab at the center of suspicions about the pandemic’s onset was far more troubled than known, documents unearthed by a Senate team reveal. Tracing the evidence, Vanity Fair and ProPublica give the clearest view yet of a biocomplex in crisis.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was a “biocomplex in crisis” in November 2019 as security issues drew the attention of Xi Jinping. Revelations make the coronavirus outbreak that occurred shortly thereafter look less than coincidental. But the details supporting a lab-leak theory are typically being dismissed by China as “fabricated.”

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Lockdown patience expiring

Daily Mail Online @MailOnline

Rare protest erupts in Tibet over three-month Covid lockdown as hundreds march in streets and clash with officials

trib.alRare protest erupts in Tibet over three-month Covid lockdownTibet’s capital Lhasa has been locked down for 74 days in accordance with China’s zero-Covid strategy, which sees millions of residents across the country repeatedly confined to their homes.

Lhasa is the Tibetan capital where a protest erupted against a three-month COVID-19 lockdown after 74 days, which appeared in footage later deleted on Chinese social media. Meanwhile, workers at an iPhone factory in Zhengzhou fled after an outbreak triggered a lockdown, and Universal Studios Beijing closed down in compliance with zero-COVID policy.

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Secret policing exposures

Safeguard Defenders (保护卫士) @SafeguardDefend

Grateful to see global interest in our #110Overseas investigation on the PRC’s clandestine police stations around the world. For more background re China’s national legal framework for these policing operations & stories of those “persuaded to return” 👉 safeguarddefenders.com/en/involuntary…

The report on covert Chinese operations to force “fugitives” living overseas back home continues to reverberate: Canada is now formally investigating reports of such secret police stations, while a U.S. judge issued an indictment against even suspects in Brooklyn, New York. Locations of similar sites around the globe are increasingly coming to light.

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The seven men in charge

Reuters World @ReutersWorld

China's Xi clinches third term, with loyalists on Standing Committee reut.rs/3StJaYq

The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party ended with the introduction of the rest of the Standing Committee backing Xi Jinping, and now they face economic headwinds. Still a mystery is why former leader Hu Jintao was escorted out. (Footage shows him engaged in an argument beforehand.)

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Tuan Tuan’s symbolic end

AFP News Agency @AFP

VIDEO: Chinese veterinary experts have been invited to Taiwan for a rare visit between the two sides, zoo officials said in Taipei, after a male panda that symbolized an era of warmer ties was moved into end of life care. u.afp.com/i5WB

Recent tensions involving China and Taiwan were put aside as Tuan Tuan fell gravely ill at the Taipei City Zoo. The male giant panda was a gift from Beijing in 2008—when relations were more cordial—along with his breeding mate Yuan Yuan. Those two names translating as “reunion” in Chinese was a nod to aspiring toward an imminent unity between nations.