An attack on Beijing Castle during the Boxer Rebellion (wikipedia.org)
The future is determined by two main factors. The first is a question of timing. Will the rest of the world manage to contain the virus as China did and what will the damage be to the United States and the rest of the world? Second, the relations between two superpowers – the People’s Republic of China and the United States, facing each other. For the former, the virus has turned out to offer the most unexpected strategic advantage, whereas for the latter – almost a total disaster.
To what extent the relations are nervous between the two superpowers, we can tell from the current informational warfare over the issue of the nature of COVID-19. Both sides are blaming each other even suggesting that the virus has been used as a biological weapon against a global competitor. This informational warfare is happening at a time when the real global power is shifting, a time which is incomparable with previous situations, when such allegations were elements of propaganda and nothing else. This time, it is different, and it is very unpredictable how the global situation is going to evolve and in whose favor the cards will fall after the end of the Corona crisis. Thus, this time it is something more than merely an exchange of propagandistic “words.” The subject of this research is to examine the nature of biological (germ) warfare in the context of the American-Chinese informational warfare and of American-Chinese narrative of “germ warfare” since the Cold War to the times of COVID-19.
American-Chinese Informational Warfare in the XXI Century: from SARS to COVID-19
The United States have recently been accused by the Chinese Government of spreading the coronavirus (COVID-19). Both Americans and Chinese hurled verbal attacks at each other regarding the origin of coronavirus. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of China’s MFA, blamed the U.S. for spreading the virus to the city of Wuhan in Hubei province. As evidence of his logic, Zhao Lijian referred to Robert Redfield’s testimony. Redfield, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a congressional hearing that some deaths from coronavirus had been discovered posthumously in the U.S. For Chinese officials, this suggested the possibility that “a patient zero” was from the U.S. Lijian also echoed conspirological versions long ago circulating in China, that the U.S. militaries brought the virus to Wuhan. The virus was reportedly brought to Wuhan by American soldiers in October 2019, when they arrived in the city for the Military World Games. The number of American delegation to Wuhan was more than 300 people (China Military, “U.S. delegation arrives in Wuhan for Military World Games,” http://english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2019-10/15/content_9652122.htm)
These kinds of theories have been actively promulgated by the Center for Research on Globalization, a Canadian-based outfit that promotes conspiracy theories that generally align with Russian propaganda.
China is ferociously defending herself in this informational war. Beijing is developing “questions to the U.S.” strategy. In the “People’s Daily”, there were raised the following questions on May, 3: “Why are the CT images of the patients of electronic cigarette pneumonia that broke out last August in the US resemble those of the COVID-19 patients? What on earth happened in the bioweapons lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland? When did the earliest COVID-19 infection happen in the US, since a COVID-19 patient without travel history to China died on Feb. 6? Why are American scientists silenced for publishing COVID-19 studies in the US which always brags about its freedom of speech? Chinese and European scientists have published multiple genetic sequencing results of the novel coronavirus, and why doesn’t the US release its studies as the top power in biogenetic studies? The US politicians must give answers.” (Zhong Sheng “US practice to claim compensation for COVID-19 outbreak a shame for human civilization,” People’s Daily, 2020/5/3 // http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1187330.shtml)
The Washington Post recently wrote quite a critical article about the U.S. Administration’s approach towards China and how it has dealt with Covid-19 both inside the country and at a global level. According to the newspaper, the Administration “continues to focus more on scoring PR points against Beijing than on working with China to halt the virus’s spread” (John Pomfret “The U.S.-China coronavirus blame game and conspiracies are getting dangerous,” Washington Post, March 17, 2020). When the virus unexpectedly paralyzed the greatest superpower in world history, the term “Chinese virus” became a part of American political discourse. Many times, the President of the U.S., Donald Trump used this term and his State Secretary Mike Pompeo referred to the virus as a “Wuhan virus.” The main context of such a word construct is accusing one particular state for the virus and its global outbreak. In this regard, the World Health Organization warned against referring to Covid-19 as a “Chinese virus.” (Morgan Gstalter, “WHO official warns against calling it ‘Chinese virus,’ says ‘there is no blame in this,” The Hill, 03/19/2020 // https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/488479-who-official-warns-against-calling-it-chinese-virus-says-there-is-no)
Additionally to this, China wants to deport a number of American journalists from leading American newspapers, which will certainly escalate the situation. During the peak of the crisis in the country, China did not want to receive help from the United States and neither supported the idea of having American scientists in the country. Beijing saw this as a U.S. ruse to allow it to send spies to the country.
Conspirological explanations are only going to be rising, but it is not new when China blames Americans for the alleged use of biological warfare against her. In 2013, a Chinese Air Force Colonel Dai Xu accused the US government of creating a new strain of bird flu now afflicting parts of China as a biological warfare attack (https://www.foxnews.com/health/chinese-colonel-claims-new-bird-flu-strain-is-a-biological-weapon-from-us). According to him, the American military released the H7N9 bird flu virus into China as an act of biological warfare. It has been reported that the source of the Ebola virus in West Africa was US bio-warfare labs. Unfortunately, this is not simply the imagination of one or two persons in China. It looks like the Chinese perceive the threat of germ (biological) warfare used against them as something real and deep rooted. There is a kind of precedent for such fears, because in 2001 the U.S. Administration refused to sign the protocol to the 1972 Biological Warfare Convention (BWC). Some experts in China considered this proof of the U.S. intention to develop and use biological weapons against other countries in future (Rebecca Whitehair, Seth Brugger “BWC Protocol Talks in Geneva Collapse Following U.S. Rejection,” Arms Control Today (Arms Control Association), September, 2001 // https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2001-09/press-releases/bwc-protocol-talks-geneva-collapse-following-us-rejection).
Similar accusations came in 2007 when Chinese military researchers blamed the U.S. for being responsible for the development of a novel biological weapon. As a Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, Yanzhong Huang writes that the decision of China restricted for foreigners the use of human genetic material and made it impossible to take human material abroad (Yanzhong Huang, “U.S.-Chinese Distrust Is Inviting Dangerous Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories And Undermining Efforts to Contain the Epidemic,” March 5, 2020 // https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-03-05/us-chinese-distrust-inviting-dangerous-coronavirus-conspiracy). It was not only China which blamed America for creating a germ warfare against her, but the U.S. accused China too of the same. In 2006, Washington accused Beijing of maintaining some elements of offensive biological weapons and cooperating on this issue with North Korea and Iran (Iran Focus, “US faults China on germ weapons, Iran, North Korea,” 14 September 2006 // https://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general-mainmenu-26/8638-us-faults-china-on-germ-weapons-iran-north-korea).
Finally, it should be mentioned that the situation is shaping into a new format, namely to race relations. A rise in xenophobia towards Asians has been reported throughout the world, but recently there were reports that in the United States there have been specific repercussions. Asian-Americans are facing racial attacks in the U.S., especially when the President and his Administration linked the virus to China. This has triggered the outrage of American civil society and Asian-Americans. Many experts remembered the government-sponsored discrimination baked into the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Japanese internment in the 1940s (Matt Stevens “How Asian-American Leaders Are Grappling With Xenophobia Amid Coronavirus,” New York Times, March 29, 2020 // https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/us/politics/coronavirus-asian-americans.html).
Such reminiscence about terrible times immediately reanimated the massive American cultural heritage (‘baggage’) connected to the offensive phrase “Yellow Peril.”
Even before the spread of Covid-19, the vulnerability of America regarding China and people of Chinese origin as “an internal threat” had become a matter of concern, especially under the current administration. The case of Harvard University is the most striking (sometimes the allegations even refer to the entire Ivy League), when it became routine to blame Harvard University and other elite universities for racial discrimination towards Asian-Americans, despite their tremendous educational achievements (Katie Reilly, “As the Harvard Admissions Case Nears a Decision, Hear From 2 Asian-American Students on Opposite Sides,” Time, March 12, 2019 // https://time.com/5546463/harvard-admissions-trial-asian-american-students/). Interestingly, Harvard University has received the greatest proportion of Chinese monetary gifts around $94 million (Janet Lorin and Brandon Kochkodin, “Harvard leads U.S. colleges that received $1 billion from China,” Philadelphia Enquirer, February 7, 2020 // https://www.inquirer.com/education/china-funding-us-colleges-universities-trade-tensions-20200207.html). The “freshest” incident which happened recently is the arrest of Charles Lieber (U.S. Department of Justice, “Harvard University Professor and Two Chinese Nationals Charged in Three Separate China Related Cases,” January 28, 2020, // https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-and-two-chinese-nationals-charged-three-separate-china-related), a prominent Harvard University chemist and nanotechnology pioneer, who has been charged with making false statements to the US government about receiving research funding from China.
The two rival superpowers have been engaged in latent “trade wars” and Covid-19 only deteriorated the things, if in September 2019 Trump stated that “Obviously, China is a threat to the world in a sense, because they are building military faster than anybody and frankly they are using US money.” The case of “5G” is also a part of the superpower competition. Today, the U.S and the West are in general in a baffling enigma – although they are totally bogged down in the struggle against the virus which has bared all weaknesses of the West, they see how Asia is rising. They would probably like to prevent and to stop it, but they simply are not able until the virus paralyzed their political and social systems.
WHO is a victim of “Warm War”
The spillover effect of this “biological” informational warfare now is possible to observe in the United Nations and specifically in the World Health Organization. The WHO opposed both to call the virus as “Chinese virus” and to the conspirological theories about creation of the virus in Chinese laboratories. Due to such a position, the WHO found itself under attacks from the White House and was accused to be a Chinese accomplice, paying attention only to the positive side of Chinese strategy against the COVID-19 as well as helping China to become a global public health superpower (Hinnerk Feldwisch-Drentrup How WHO Became China’s Coronavirus Accomplice April 2, 2020 // https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/02/china-coronavirus-who-health-soft-power/). Besides, Donald Trump promised to halt the financing of the WHO because it has “failed in its basic duty.” The U.S. share in funding of the WHO is around 9.2% of its budget (Coronavirus Updates: Trump Halts U.S. Funding of World Health Organization April 14, 2020 // https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/coronavirus-updates.html). China in response provided an additional $30 million to the WHO. It is definitely a challenge to Washington and a message that if they are not going to take the responsibility for global public policy, it is going to be done by someone else. Xinhua Agency described the U.S. decision as “a desperate attempt to shift the blame for its clumsy handling of the pandemic.” (“Commentary: World needs to watch out for U.S. politicians’ blame-shifting subterfuge,” Xinhua 2020-05-01 // http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-05/01/c_139024111.htm)
Due to these allegations, on April 24 the second virtual summit of G20 in response to outbreak of COVID-19 was cancelled last minute, while the first summit was held on March 26. But this fact did not discourage China – instead, it gives her additional points in the competition for global leadership. Trump wants full accountability from the WHO and understanding who is paying for its operation (“American taxpayers provide between US$400m and US$500m per year to the WHO; in contrast China contributes roughly US$40m a year, even less. As the organisation’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability” (Zhou Xin and Echo Xie, Coronavirus: WHO row between US, China sees G20 leaders summit called off at last minute, South China Morning Post, April 25 2020 // https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3081505/coronavirus-who-row-between-us-china-sees-g20-leaders-summit). On May 7, the Chinese MFA stated that China continues to work with the WHO and supports the cooperation between scientists to find the origin of the novel virus. Concurrently, the political leadership of the U.S. is blamed – “some people in the US have talked nonsense by claiming that the virus was made in China or spread by China.” (Wang Qingyun, “Country backs WHO probe into virus origin” China Daily 2020-05-07 // https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202005/07/WS5eb3424fa310a8b241153cb3.html)
For example, the National Republican Senatorial Committee report leaked to the public and according to this report China had campaigned for Tedros, the current director, and he owed them a favor hiding facts about the danger of the virus (Corona Big Book, Main Messages, April 17, 2020 O’Donnel&Associates, Strategic Communications // https://static.politico.com/80/54/2f3219384e01833b0a0ddf95181c/corona-virus-big-book-4.17.20.pdf). Moreover, the Democratic Party is described in the report as “soft on China and fails to stand up to them”. Allegedly, they are blinded with political correctness even if it is about the question of saving the country. According to the document, Joe Biden, as the Democratic Party Nominee, has been soft on China his whole career, and he doesn’t even think of China as of a rival. Actually, Republicans are afraid to be blamed as racists and they are basing their attacks on the foundations that their enemy is the Chinese Communist Party.
China behaves soberly and conducts the policy strictly according to her geopolitical interests – no emotions there. In a rebuke to the U.S., as in Davos in 2018 and in the online G20 Summit in March, China rejects protectionism and claims its commitments to multilateralism. Additionally, China has pledged some comprehensive measures in order to stabilize the world economy. At the same time, Beijing allows aggressive statements in the media. For example, in an additional article of “China Daily” a couple of days ago Pompeo was called a “clown.” (China Daily Global, “Pompeo’s clown show spotlights US administration’s mistakes,”2020-05-06 // https://epaper.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202005/06/WS5eb210c5a3102640f4a62f61.html) The tone of the article is very paternalistic and preachy with a general idea of stopping to be emotional and returning to the old normal track of relations. China sees it as continuation of electoral battles inside the United States for Trump and of gaining support in the country (Chen Qingqing and Zhao Yusha “US blame game plotted for election,” Global Times 2020/5/5 // http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1187482.shtml). China is even patronizing Washington by accusing the U.S. with their “nonfeasance and dereliction of duty” as the world’s sole superpower regarding the pandemic (Xinhua Headlines, “Lies never to be allowed to distort true history of global COVID-19 fight,” Xinhua 2020-05-02 // http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-05/02/c_139026389.htm).
Finally, in the U.S., the Republican establishment is feeling that actually for China, and maybe for Russia as well, Joe Biden is a more appropriate candidate. Trump believes personally that China wants him to lose the upcoming elections. The conservative Washington Examiner (Tom Rogan, “Why China likely wants Trump to lose the election,” May 1, 2020 Washington Examiner, // https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-china-likely-wants-trump-to-lose-the-election) develops his idea, and writes that Xi was quite happy with Obama when he allowed China to keep stealing U.S. intellectual property without any significant cyber-retaliation. As a result, China possesses 5G. According to the logic of the article, China will be happy with Joe Biden. If I may add to the above statement, we are drastically evolving from “a Russian threat” narrative to “a China threat” narrative, but this time it is much more dangerous.
Autor
Ridvan Bari Urcosta
Senior Analyst at Strategy&Future
Strategy&Future
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