Communist China has reportedly implemented restrictions on publishing academic research on the origin of the coronavirus, which originated in China, as Beijing seeks to gain control of the narrative surrounding the outbreak.
“Under the new policy, all academic papers on Covid-19 will be subject to extra vetting before being submitted for publication. Studies on the origin of the virus will receive extra scrutiny and must be approved by central government officials, according to the now-deleted posts,” CNN reported. “Since late January, Chinese researchers have published a series of Covid-19 studies in influential international medical journals. Some findings about early coronavirus cases — such as when human-to-human transition first appeared — have raised questions over the official government account of the outbreak and sparked controversy on Chinese social media.”
A Chinese researcher, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity citing fear of the communist government, said that the move by China’s government was worrying because they fear China is going to try to rewrite history.
“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 told CNN. “And I don’t think they will really tolerate any objective study to investigate the origination of this disease.”
The researcher warned that the “international scientific community must realize that any journal or manuscripts from [a] Chinese research institution has been” filtered through China’s communist government, which lied about the outbreak and tried to cover it up.
Yanzhong Huang, a top expert on China at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN: “It is no surprise that the government seeks to control related scientific research so that the findings do not challenge its own narrative on the origin of the virus and the government response to the crisis. The danger is that when scientific research is subject to the needs of those in power, it further undermines the credibility of the government narrative, making accusations of underreporting and misinformation more convincing.”
The news comes as China is grappling with large numbers of new coronavirus cases after it failed to contain the outbreak in Wuhan.
“Officials said Monday that mainland China had 169 new confirmed cases of infection, with 61 of them described as ‘asymptomatic’ COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus,” NPR reported. “The government said 98 of the cases were ‘imported’ by people arriving from abroad. … The increase has sparked concern about a second wave of infections in China, which was the original epicenter of the pandemic.”
China had to lock down Jia county, which has 600,000 residents, a couple of weeks ago and last week had to lock down the city of Suifenhe on the Russian border, which is home to about 70,000 people.
The numbers that China has reported are widely considered to be lies, as China’s own allies call the numbers bogus.
Bloomberg News reported at the start of the month that U.S. intelligence officials confirmed to President Donald Trump that the numbers that China reported, both the cases and deaths, were “intentionally incomplete” and that the “numbers are fake.”