President Joe Biden heads to Europe Wednesday to meet with European leaders. He says the goal is to work together to “deliver real results” on critical issues, like climate change and cybersecurity. Biden is ducking the most important issue — the cause of the pandemic. He should be marshaling allies to act in unison by squeezing China to get answers and demand reparations. The evidence is mounting that China is guilty of manslaughter on a massive scale.
Damning evidence published on the opinion page of The Wall Street Journal on Saturday shows that COVID-19’s genetic sequence is found nowhere in nature, making it unlikely the killer virus leaped from animals to humans naturally. Scientists Dr. Stephen Quay and Richard Muller argue that the COVID-19 genetic sequence is exactly what researchers would choose to use to engineer a virus for maximum infectivity against humans. Other recent analyses of the virus also point to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology — not nature — as the source of the pandemic. In science, nothing is settled. New evidence could still emerge and point in another direction.
But there is no doubt that China acted criminally once the virus began circulating in Wuhan in 2019. China hid the virus’s existence for weeks, denied that it could spread human to human, muzzled its scientists and blocked outside scientists from investigating — all in violation of Articles 6 and 7 of WHO’s International Health Regulations.
China is a repeat offender. In 2003, it hid the existence of the deadly SARS virus until it had spread worldwide, leaving a trail of death.
This time, Biden should be leading a multinational effort to isolate China, get answers and demand reparations. Without answers, warns Baylor College of Medicine epidemiologist Peter Hotez, there will be a COVID-26 and a COVID-32, meaning more viral disasters.
Biden’s merely going through the motions, appearing to take action but doing nothing. He’s called for a 90-day investigation by U.S. intelligence agencies. That’s mere paper-shuffling. As Hotez says, “We’ve pushed intelligence as far as we can.” Scientists need to collect lab samples from Wuhan and biological samples from the earliest COVID-19 patients.
The Biden administration has also called on the WHO to investigate again. WHO allowed China to handpick the first investigation team, ban access to actual biological evidence and veto conclusions it didn’t like. There’s no point to a second WHO investigation. WHO remains a puppet to China, still bowing to demands to exclude Taiwan from meetings on COVID-19.
To get the truth, The New York Post proposed an important remedy — a commission created by an act of Congress relying on nonpartisan scientists, not the likes of Anthony Fauci, EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak, and the NIH’s Francis Collins. Their fingerprints are all over whatever virus was engineered in Wuhan. They misled Congress and the nation with a naïve globalist viewpoint that put us in danger. Fauci told Congress that the Wuhan lab staff are “competent, trustworthy scientists, ” never mind their germ warfare projects for the Chinese Communist military.
Last week, Biden commented that China believes in a few years it “will own America.” What’s your strategy, Mr. President? So far, only weakness.
It’s a stark contrast to former President Donald Trump, who declared on Saturday night that “the time has come for America and the world to demand reparations and accountability from the Communist Party of China.”
Trump proposed that “as a first step, all countries should collectively cancel all debt they owe to China as a down payment for reparations.” Some 150 countries are indebted to China. The U.S. owes $1.1 trillion.
Trump’s proposal is unorthodox. Economists warn defaulting will harm our ability to borrow in the future — ordinarily, a compelling concern. But the argument holds less water if all major countries collectively agree to enforce reparations against China this way.
China’s actions have led to carnage on a scale not seen since the Nazis. Nearly 4 million people have died, including 600,000 Americans.
One thing is clear. Unless China is made to pay, Americans will pay with their lives.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and author of "The Next Pandemic," available at Amazon.com. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
