[bourgwaletariat]

Yeah, just don't do GoF research. Or don't let it escape from a lab. Or, don't lie about it when it does. Or, contain it if it does. Or shut down travel outside the country if it does. Or, don't cripple Australia with a trade war if they suggest an investigation into the origins of the disease are warranted. Or don't cancel people if they wonder if maybe it didn't come from nature. Or, do the audits to verify the labs doing catastrophic research are doing it safely and properly. Or, don't sneak in funding for something that has already been declared a risk to human existence. Or, don't pay "non-profits" millions of dollars to pay enemy nations to do research into how to turn a virus into a bioweapon. Or value the health of the world over the profits of corporations.

I bet none of these ideas are in the report.

* read article *

Nope.

* reads report *

Oh, I got one: Waive IP rights to vaccines.

Their suggestion: Give the WHO more money. They'll do it better next time apparently.

I guarantee you, if China had said, "A bioweapon we were developing escaped the lab, lock everything down!"

This would not have happened.

[_y5hn]

Bioweapon? A new strain of virus that can mutate to unknown properties, and to which virtually nobody have immunity?

[rcpt]

Even if it weren't developed as a weapon (I think the current theory is they were researching possible coronavirus vaccines) the WHO shouldn't be so complacent in letting China control the investigation.

[_y5hn]

WHO is an NGO and have absolutely no authority.

I agree we shouldn't trust reports from China.

[A_non_e-moose]

No authority does not imply they have to bend over and parrot governments' messages.

WHO could have simply requested permission to send an early investigation team, and if refused, warn the rest of the world that investigations were refused.

They could have been the canary in the coal mine and let other governments, who do have power, pressure the one that refuses to cooperate.

[_y5hn]

Agreed, they do risk accusations about bias then too though.

[A_non_e-moose]

And by the way, the WHO is not an NGO. Its membership is open to all nation states, but exclusively for nation states, similarly to UN.

https://www.who.int/sidcer/links/en/ " World Health Organization An inter-governmental organisation whose objective is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health."

[_y5hn]

Thanks for correction.

[throwawaysea]

Chinese scientists discussed weaponizing SARS in 2015 (https://www.ibtimes.com/explosive-report-says-chinese-scient...).

[femto]

The chain of references here is:

IBTimes quotes "The Australian" newspaper. (Murdoch)

"The Australian" quotes the book "The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapon".

The above book is based on a discredited claim that the US engineered SARS as a weapon against China, which has now been twisted into a counter claim that China in turn engineered COVID against the US (see below).

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/going-viral-how-a-book-on-...

[throwawaysea]

Your linked article at the Sydney Morning Herald opens with a blurb saying "The discredited theory that coronavirus is a bio-weapon created in a Wuhan lab is gaining new momentum". To be clear I am not making this claim. I am however, claiming the Chinese government had an interest in biological warfare, including weaponizing SARS, and that a lab leak related to SARS research (even without intent of biological weaponry) is a possibility. I feel like the article is opening with a strawman that doesn't represent the legitimate speculation many harbor regarding the WIV lab leak theory.

Now getting back to the article's actual content - I don't think the article makes a great case for dismissing the notion that the Chinese government was interested in biological weapons. One of its sources, Luke de Pulford, is quoted as saying about the paper/book, "What’s beyond doubt is the paper’s provenance. It’s legitimate and poses questions which deserve thorough probing." It goes on to note that Xu Dezhong, who authored the paper/book, is “not a fringe player”. "He held a senior position at the Air Force Medical University and reported to the Chinese Military Commission and Ministry of Health during the SARS epidemic in 2003." It then goes on to say "Conspiracy theories are regularly published in China, including by those connected with the government" to discredit what Dezhong has claimed. But that isn't evidence that Dezhong's claims are wrong - it amounts to saying "a nonzero number of people in China have said false things before, so therefore we cannot take the word of this military official".

All that said, it is entirely possible that China was not and is not interested in biological weapons, and that the source is untrustworthy and false. But we have to process this possibility using probabilities, since there are no definite answers proving or disproving anything here. Given that China's government took over Tibet, has been oppressing Hong Kong, operates concentration camps in Xinjiang, has built up various military capabilities as it threatens aggression against Taiwan, suppressed early reports of COVID-19, arrested journalists who reported on the virus, and denied visits to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for over a year, there is no reason to trust them or give them the benefit of the doubt on matters relating to SARS or COVID-19 or militaristic goals. As Homeland Security Committee member Ron Johnson is quoted in this article when asked about China preparing biological weapons, “Does that shock anybody? It certainly doesn’t shock me."

As a side note: your mention of Murdoch seems like an ad-hominem argument, using his name as a boogeyman to discredit this story. But that's not a substantive argument.

[femto]

The mention of Murdoch was aimed at the chain of companies (centred around News Corp), not the person. The voting structure of News Corp is such that the Murdoch family has control, so News Corp and Murdoch (the family) are pretty well interchangeable terms from an editorial point of view.

The "Murdoch" press includes newspapers such as "The Australian" and "The Telegraph" in Australia, "Fox", "WSJ" and "New York Post" in the US, "Sky" and newspapers such as "The Sun" in the UK. They quote each other, as if they are independent sources (in this case the story in " The Australian" was first published in "The Telegraph"), but in reality they are all one source, with the Murdoch family exercising ultimate editorial control.

That's the background to the use of the term "Murdoch". It's not referring to the person but identifying a group of media companies that are effectively a single source.