The Chinese government is paying special attention to studies regarding the origin of the coronavirus in order to make it appear it did everything right, a researcher in the country said.
By Aaron Sull, World Israel News
The Chinese government may be trying to control the narrative regarding the origins and spread of the novel coronavirus, reports The Guardian.
According to the report, details regarding the government’s coronavirus censorship procedures were posted and deleted shortly afterward from the websites of Shanghai’s Fudan University and the Wuhan University of Geosciences.
“They are seeking to transform it from a massive disaster to one where the government did everything right and gave the rest of the world time to prepare,” Kevin Carrico, a senior research fellow of Chinese studies at Australia’s Monash University, told The Guardian.
“There is a desire to a degree to deny realities that are staring at us in the face … that this is a massive pandemic that originated in a place that the Chinese government really should have cleaned up after SARS,” he added.
After digging up undeleted cached pages of the deleted posts, The Guardian found that the government directive requires all coronavirus academic papers to be vetted by the Ministry of Education’s science and technology department.
If the department supports the research findings, it is sent for further vetting to a special task force charged with final approval.
Furthermore, the directive said that special attention will be applied to studies regarding the origin of the virus.
A Chinese researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, told CNN that the policy severely obstructs credible coronavirus research.
“I think it is a coordinated effort from (the) Chinese government to control (the) narrative, and paint it as if the outbreak did not originate in China,” the researcher said as quoted by CNN.
“I don’t think they will really tolerate any objective study to investigate the origination of this disease.”
This is not the first time the Chinese government has tried to change the coronavirus narrative.
Last month, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused the U.S. military of bringing over the deadly virus to China.
“CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in the U.S.? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be the U.S. army that brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! The U.S. owes us an explanation!” Lijian tweeted to his 300,000 plus followers.
All objective observers agree that the virus began in Wuhan, China, and most say it started in a wet market. Wet markets sell exotic animals for food. Bats have been fingered as the most likely culprit as they contain a high reservoir of corona-type viruses.