AS TENTATIVAS DE WASHINGTON EM INTIMIDAR A CHINA VÃO SAIR PELA CULATRA

Artigo ORIGINAL, em inglês, de Mike Whitney, ver AQUI.

Podemos ter uma conversa séria sobre a China?

A China está rapidamente ultrapassando os Estados Unidos em várias áreas que ameaçam minar a posição dos Estados Unidos no mundo. Naturalmente, os líderes dos EUA e seus patrocinadores bilionários estão preocupados com isso e tomaram medidas para remediar a situação. Lamentavelmente, nenhuma dessas medidas inclui uma avaliação honesta do modelo econômico ocidental que permite que os "poucos privilegiados" roubem muito dos lucros de suas empresas, deixando capital insuficiente para reinvestir em atividade produtiva, infraestrutura crítica ou melhoria social. Os formuladores de políticas chineses adotaram uma abordagem diferente para essa questão e os resultados falam por si. Os padrões de vida aumentaram acentuadamente, a pobreza foi erradicada, a assistência médica é universal, a infraestrutura crítica é de primeira linha e a China está ficando mais forte a cada dia.

Não acredite em mim. Leia os dados econômicos você mesmo. Ou, melhor ainda, pesquise no Google “cidades chinesas” ou “trem de alta velocidade chinês” ou “portos chineses” ou “pontes chinesas” etc. Veja você mesmo o milagre que está acontecendo na China hoje.

Esta não é apenas uma história sobre a ascensão econômica meteórica da China. É uma história sobre uma cultura e uma civilização que se livrou de um século de humilhação imperial e explodiu no cenário mundial como nenhuma outra civilização na história da humanidade. A China não é apenas um farol de luz em um mundo que está vivenciando paroxismos de violência e genocídio em uma escala não vista desde a Segunda Guerra Mundial, ela também serve como modelo para um futuro de coexistência pacífica por meio da prosperidade compartilhada, integração econômica e um vasto plano de infraestrutura para conectar os continentes por meio de uma nova Rota da Seda. (Iniciativa Cinturão e Rota) Os líderes chineses acreditam que o comércio e a conectividade podem aproximar o mundo, encerrando o ciclo vicioso de guerras que ameaçam aniquilar toda a humanidade. Em suma, a China está apontando o caminho para sair de cinco séculos de exploração colonial para um futuro mais brilhante, onde nações e pessoas usam mercados livres para trabalhar juntos e "levantar todos os barcos".

Já mencionamos que o milagre chinês não requer 800 bases militares espalhadas pelo planeta, ou intervenções sangrentas no Iraque, Líbia, Síria etc., ou inúmeros golpes em capitais estrangeiras, ou operações secretas, guerras sujas e infinitas operações psicológicas direcionadas ao povo americano. (Russiagate, Covid-19, 6 de janeiro, George Floyd etc.) Não, a China atingiu seus objetivos à moda antiga, por meio de trabalho duro, iniciativa, inovação e o apoio de um governo que direciona capital para projetos que promovem os interesses coletivos do povo chinês. Imagine um governo que articula corajosamente sua visão para o futuro e então auxilia os trabalhadores e indústrias que tornam esse sonho uma realidade. Foi isso que a China fez e é isso que a China está fazendo hoje. Dê uma olhada neste trecho de um artigo de Ron Unz:

A ascensão da China certamente está entre os acontecimentos mundiais mais importantes dos últimos 100 anos...

Durante as três décadas até 2010, a China alcançou talvez a mais rápida taxa sustentada de desenvolvimento econômico na história da espécie humana, com sua economia real crescendo quase 40 vezes entre 1978 e 2010. Em 1978, a economia dos Estados Unidos era 15 vezes maior, mas, de acordo com a maioria das estimativas internacionais, a China está prestes a ultrapassar a produção econômica total dos Estados Unidos em apenas alguns anos.

Além disso, a grande maioria da riqueza econômica recém-criada da China fluiu para trabalhadores chineses comuns, que migraram de bois e bicicletas para a beira dos automóveis em apenas uma geração. Enquanto as rendas medianas americanas estão estagnadas há quase quarenta anos, as da China quase dobraram a cada década, com os salários reais dos trabalhadores fora do setor agrícola aumentando cerca de 150% somente nos últimos dez anos . Os chineses de 1980 eram desesperadamente pobres em comparação com paquistaneses, nigerianos ou quenianos; mas hoje, eles são várias vezes mais ricos, representando uma mudança de mais de dez vezes na renda relativa. American Pravda: The Racial Roots of China's Rise , Ron Unz, Unz Review

Mais de Unz: Um relatório do Banco Mundial destacou recentemente a enorme queda nas taxas de pobreza global de 1980 a 2008, mas os críticos notaram que mais de 100 por cento desse declínio veio somente da China : o número de chineses vivendo em extrema pobreza caiu em notáveis ​​662 milhões, enquanto a população empobrecida no resto do mundo na verdade aumentou em 13 milhões. E embora a Índia seja frequentemente pareada com a China na mídia ocidental, uma grande fração dos indianos na verdade ficou mais pobre ao longo do tempo... O progresso econômico da China é especialmente impressionante quando comparado a paralelos históricos. Entre 1870 e 1900, a América desfrutou de uma expansão industrial sem precedentes... Durante esses 30 anos, a renda per capita real da América cresceu 100 por cento. Mas nos últimos 30 anos, a renda per capita real na China cresceu mais de 1.300 por cento.

Durante as três décadas até 2010, a China alcançou talvez a mais rápida taxa sustentada de desenvolvimento econômico na história da espécie humana, com sua economia real crescendo quase 40 vezes entre 1978 e 2010. Em 1978, a economia dos Estados Unidos era 15 vezes maior, mas, de acordo com a maioria das estimativas internacionais, a China está prestes a ultrapassar a produção econômica total dos Estados Unidos em apenas alguns anos.

…. de acordo com as estatísticas econômicas oficiais fornecidas pelo CIA World Factbook, a economia produtiva real da China — talvez a medida mais confiável do poder econômico global — já é mais de três vezes maior do que a dos EUA e também está crescendo muito mais rapidamente. De fato, de acordo com essa importante métrica econômica, a China agora supera facilmente o total combinado de todo o bloco liderado pelos americanos — os Estados Unidos, o resto da Anglosfera, a União Europeia e o Japão — uma conquista surpreendente… American Pravda: The Racial Roots of China's Rise, Ron Unz, Unz Review

Os dados confirmam que a análise de Ron Unz é 100 por cento precisa. “De acordo com números oficiais, a renda per capita real aumentou em um fator de mais de trinta desde 1978. A renda per capita anual agora está em cerca de US$ 22.100.”
Além disso, “a expectativa de vida na China é atualmente maior do que nos Estados Unidos, com a expectativa de vida média da China em torno de 78,2 anos, em comparação com o número mais baixo dos EUA, que varia dependendo da fonte, mas geralmente é em torno de 77,5 anos.”

Uma Conquista Monumental – “A China obteve sucesso significativo na redução da pobreza, tirando quase 800 milhões de pessoas da pobreza desde o início de suas reformas econômicas em 1978 , contribuindo para uma grande parte da redução global da pobreza extrema; essa conquista é amplamente atribuída ao rápido crescimento econômico e às políticas governamentais direcionadas ao desenvolvimento rural e ao acesso à educação e à saúde.”…

O pacote básico de serviços de saúde pública é fornecido a todos os residentes chineses gratuitamente. (Pessoas comuns sem hora marcada podem consultar um especialista no mesmo dia. Gratuito.)

De acordo com pesquisas recentes, com base nos níveis de felicidade relatados, as pessoas na China tendem a relatar níveis mais altos de felicidade em comparação aos Estados Unidos, com alguns estudos até mesmo classificando a China como um dos países mais felizes do mundo... 95% dos chineses expressaram satisfação com seu governo, enquanto apenas 35% dos americanos expressaram satisfação com seu governo nas pesquisas de Harvard e Gallup .

Então, nas questões que mais importam para os trabalhadores – salários, expectativa de vida, redução da pobreza, assistência médica e felicidade geral – a China está muito à frente dos EUA.

Em relação à educação, a mesma regra se aplica. A China vence os EUA de longe. Isto é do Quora:

Na China, há uma forte ênfase cultural na educação e na realização acadêmica. As famílias frequentemente priorizam o sucesso educacional, vendo-o como um caminho para a mobilidade ascendente.

Envolvimento dos pais: os pais chineses tendem a se envolver muito na educação dos filhos, muitas vezes oferecendo aulas particulares e apoio adicional fora da escola.

Foco do currículo: O sistema educacional chinês coloca uma forte ênfase em matemática e ciências, que são priorizadas em testes padronizados. Esse foco pode levar a uma maior proficiência nessas disciplinas.

Testes padronizados: exames de alto risco… criam um ambiente competitivo que motiva os alunos a ter um bom desempenho acadêmico.

Métodos de ensino

Ênfase no Rigor: A educação chinesa frequentemente enfatiza a memorização mecânica e a prática, particularmente em matemática, o que pode levar a um desempenho mais alto em avaliações padronizadas.
Expectativas do Professor: Os professores na China normalmente têm altas expectativas para seus alunos, o que pode promover uma forte ética de trabalho e disciplina acadêmica.

Investimento em educação: Nos últimos anos, o governo chinês fez investimentos significativos em educação, especialmente em áreas urbanas, resultando em melhores instalações e recursos.

Fatores socioeconômicos

Acesso a Recursos: Em muitos casos, estudantes em áreas urbanas da China têm maior acesso a recursos educacionais, incluindo tutoria e programas extracurriculares, em comparação com seus colegas americanos. Quora

Podemos dizer definitivamente que a China tem um sistema educacional superior e que os EUA devem imitar esse sistema para garantir que nossos filhos saibam ler, escrever e encontrar empregos remunerados que aumentem suas chances de prosperidade e felicidade no futuro?

Sim, podemos.

Podemos também dizer que os padrões de vida nos Estados Unidos estão caindo devido à desigualdade de renda, salários estagnados e inflação crônica? E que a lacuna entre ricos e pobres está aumentando? E que a classe média está diminuindo? E que a pobreza, a insegurança alimentar e a falta de moradia estão piorando progressivamente?

Sim, sim, sim e sim.

(A pobreza nos Estados Unidos aumentou em 2022 e 2023 de... 12,4% em 2022, acima dos 7,8% em 2021. E em 2023, até 12,9%... A falta de moradia nos Estados Unidos é uma crise crescente, com números recordes de pessoas em situação de rua em 2024... Insegurança alimentar em 2023, 13,5% das famílias nos EUA estavam em situação de insegurança alimentar, o que é uma taxa maior do que em 2022.)

Nos Estados Unidos, tudo está indo na direção errada. O sistema político não responde às necessidades básicas do povo e só se preocupa com os interesses da classe doadora que se tornou simultaneamente viciada em violência enquanto irremediavelmente desligada da realidade. É de se admirar que os EUA sejam incapazes de competir em igualdade de condições com a China?

Nenhuma surpresa. Isto é da Bloomberg News:

Xi diz que o crescimento do PIB da China em 2024 deve atingir a meta de cerca de 5% (enquanto o PIB dos EUA fica em anêmicos 2,7%)

Claro, o crescimento é uma métrica sem sentido se a receita não for dedicada à atividade produtiva ou melhorias na sociedade. Na China, uma parcela significativa dos lucros é reciclada em infraestrutura pública, como uma rede ferroviária de alta velocidade que atualmente se estende por mais de 47.000 quilômetros. Em comparação, "atualmente, há apenas duas linhas ferroviárias nos EUA que chegam à marca de 200 km/h (124 mph), que é a velocidade mínima não oficial na qual um trem pode ser considerado um trem de alta velocidade". O trem mais rápido da China é o Shanghai Maglev, que tem uma velocidade máxima de 431 quilômetros por hora (268 milhas por hora). É a primeira linha comercial de alta velocidade do mundo.

Aqui está outro artigo de encher os olhos que você não vai ler na grande mídia. Isto é de Arnaud Bertrand, da X:

Isto é impressionante: a Organização das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento Industrial (UNIDO) agora projeta que, em 2030, a participação da China na produção industrial mundial atingirá 45%, mais de 4 vezes a dos EUA (11%) e mais do que a de todos os Países de Alta Renda combinados (38%). Em 2000, a participação da China era de apenas 6%, contra 25% dos EUA e 75% dos Países de Alta Renda. @RnaudBertrand

Aqui está Bertrand novamente resumindo um artigo no The Economist :

A China é agora a superpotência científica mais proeminente do mundo – até mesmo o ultrapreconceituoso Economist agora admite isso . Você não se torna o primeiro em ciência com uma população de escravos, mas com uma população extremamente educada (muitos dos quais foram educados nos EUA e voluntariamente voltaram para a China, o que por si só destrói a narrativa da “escravidão”) que tem o poder de pensar fora da caixa e fazer apostas ousadas. Pensar assim é dar a si mesmo desculpas muito convenientes para parar de competir porque você mente para si mesmo sobre a competição ser injusta. Não é, você é apenas pior. No momento em que você começar a reconhecer isso, será o momento em que você começará a realmente se recompor. Até então, a China agradece muito por mentir para si mesmo. Arnaud Bertrand

A China se tornou uma superpotência científica, The Economist

Da biologia vegetal à física de supercondutores, o país está na vanguarda...

O ponto principal é que os Estados Unidos veem a ascensão da China como uma ameaça existencial que deve ser combatida por todos os meios necessários. É por isso que os EUA estão intimidando a China no Estreito de Taiwan e no Mar da China Meridional; é por isso que toda a cobertura da China na imprensa ocidental é irremediavelmente unilateral e negativa, é por isso que a executiva da Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, foi presa há dois anos no Aeroporto Internacional de Vancouver, é por isso que Washington está construindo coalizões anti-China na Ásia-Pacífico, e é por isso que o presidente Joe Biden acabou de escalar suas sanções sobre microchips para uma guerra tecnológica completa contra a China. Confira o breve resumo de Arnaud Bertrand do artigo da Bloomberg da semana passada intitulado: Biden limitará ainda mais as exportações de chips de IA da Nvidia em um empurrão final, Bloomberg:

Isso é loucura: o último ato de Biden na guerra dos chips antes de deixar o cargo é literalmente construir um Muro de Berlim tecnológico global.

Extremamente fácil prever que isso vai sair pela culatra dramaticamente. Vamos pensar nisso.

Em primeiro lugar, o cerne desta iniciativa é que os EUA estão agora a dividir o mundo em 3:

– Aliados próximos com acesso irrestrito a chips de IA e tecnologia avançada similar dos EUA
– Adversários com pouco ou nenhum acesso
– O resto do mundo com acesso restrito em certas condições (basicamente um acordo que os pede para escolher entre os EUA e a China)

…Vamos ser claros: os EUA estão agora abandonando toda a pretensão de que isso é de alguma forma sobre militar ou “uso duplo”, é tudo sobre domínio tecnológico bruto. O objetivo, claramente explicado no artigo da Bloomberg, é “concentrar o desenvolvimento de IA em nações amigáveis ​​e fazer com que as empresas ao redor do mundo se alinhem aos padrões americanos”.

Os problemas com essa abordagem são numerosos e óbvios.

……A China, que já investe maciçamente no desenvolvimento doméstico de semicondutores, só vai acelerar esses esforços. Você não está impedindo o progresso deles – você está garantindo que eles construirão seu próprio ecossistema. E outras nações “adversárias” literalmente não terão outra escolha a não ser comprar da China.

Para o nível “resto do mundo”, você está forçando uma escolha que todos eles repetidamente disseram que não queriam ter que fazer… escolher entre os EUA e a China. Mas aqui está a realidade – nem é uma escolha difícil. De um lado, você tem tecnologia dos EUA altamente restrita com supervisão rigorosa e limites no poder de computação. Do outro, você tem tecnologia chinesa aberta, acessível e consideravelmente mais barata (como o Deepseek de código aberto) e um parceiro que já é seu maior relacionamento comercial.

Para a maioria desses países, a escolha é óbvia – e não é a que os EUA querem que eles façam. Apostar que os países aceitarão a supervisão e as restrições tecnológicas dos EUA em vez de buscar alternativas é propriamente ilusório.

Até mesmo empresas dos EUA reconhecem que isso é autodestrutivo. A declaração da Nvidia é reveladora: isso não vai “reduzir o risco de uso indevido, mas ameaçaria o crescimento econômico e a liderança dos EUA”. Eles entendem que fragmentar o mercado global acabará prejudicando a competitividade americana, não a aumentando.

No final das contas, isso levará a um muro que isolará cada vez mais a tecnologia dos EUA enquanto o resto do mundo segue em frente. Essa é a ironia: ao tentar manter o domínio tecnológico, os EUA estão acelerando seu próprio isolamento. Ao forçar os países a escolher, estão criando exatamente as condições que os levarão a alternativas chinesas.

Isso não está contendo a ascensão tecnológica da China – está acelerando o surgimento de um ecossistema tecnológico paralelo que os EUA não serão capazes de controlar. E, finalmente, com o puro dinamismo da China e o crescimento muito mais rápido do Sul Global, esse ecossistema paralelo tem grande probabilidade de se tornar o dominante contra um Ocidente calcificado e fechado. @RnaudBertrand

O que está claro é que essa tentativa tola de intimidar a China vai explodir na cara de Washington e acelerar a taxa de declínio da América. E isso parece um resultado bem justo para mim.

O que vai, volta.

PROPAGANDA 21 Nº22 O PRÓPRIO GOVERNO DESRESPEITA AS DECISÕES POR ELE VOTADAS

 

           Representante dos EUA vota a proposta de cessar-fogo no Conselho de Segurança da ONU

Eles, não só não fazem nada para obrigar o cumprimento de uma resolução que faz lei, segundo a legalidade internacional; promovem uma falsa «conferência de paz» com vários intervenientes, mas sem a presença do Hamas!  Mike Whitney explica - de modo detalhado - em «Putting an end to Biden's Ceasefire Sabotage».

Os que nos (des)governam estão a viver num paradigma «orwelliano», em que «paz» significa guerra, «liberdade» significa opressão, «respeito pela lei» significa arbítrio do poder, etc.

As pessoas comuns estão sujeitas a «lavagem ao cérebro», de forma mais intensa desde a pandemia do COVID e, logo de seguida, desde o início da guerra russo-ucraniana. 

O mais grotesco e cruel é o genocídio dos civis palestinianos, em Gaza e agora nos Territórios da Cisjordânia estar a ser menosprezado ou negado, pelos mesmos governos que se arvoravam em «defensores dos direitos humanos». Vê-se que só lhes interessam os direitos humanos deles próprios.

 

Muitas pessoas boas estão completamente confusas, porque são constantemente doutrinadas pelo poder político das chamadas «democracias» ocidentais e pela propaganda «non stop» da média de massas. 

As pessoas já não têm mais liberdade, nem direitos:

 - Não podem informar-se livremente, há uma censura que elimina ou bloqueia todas as informações que são incómodas para os poderes. 

 - Não podem exprimir a sua opinião, pois instauraram um regime de criminalização da opinião, que visa calar toda a dissidência.

  -  Estão sujeitas a vigilância pelos corpos de polícia (política) e são arbitrariamente presas por exercerem os seus direitos constitucionais.

O Estado totalitário estende-se como um cancro, como infeção ou putrefação, nos diversos países «Ocidentais» e dentro de cada país. 

Vale a pena lerem (e seguirem) CJ Hopkins. O seu último artigo «The New Normal Right» dá uma ideia precisa do que se tem estado a passar, na Europa.

SARS-Cov-2: BIOARMA PRODUZIDA EM FORT DETRICK (USA) E LARGADA EM WUHAN?

Mike Whitney and Ron Unz
                       

 

“…..we are left with the strong likelihood that Covid came from a laboratory (and) was designed as a bioweapon… China was the intended target (and) America seems the likely source of the attack… The most likely suspects would be rogue elements of our national security establishment… The virus and its dispersal devices might have been obtained from Ft. Detrick and CIA operatives… would have been sent to Wuhan to release it.” Ron Unz, Editor of The Unz Review; from the text

Question 1– What makes your theory about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 so controversial, is not that it suggests that the pathogen was created in a lab, but that it is, in fact, a bioweapon that was deliberately released by US agents prosecuting a secret war on presumed enemies of the United States. Here’s the “money quote” from your article titled, “American Pravda: George Orwell’s Virus Lab-Leak”:

“…..we are left with the strong likelihood that Covid came from a laboratory along with a good possibility that it was designed as a bioweapon, yet we lack serious indications that any lab-leak occurred. So if the original Wuhan outbreak was due to the deployment of a powerful bioweapon but not one that had accidentally leaked from any lab, then surely China was the intended target, the victim rather than the perpetrator….

Given our ongoing military and geopolitical confrontation with China, America seems the likely source of the attack… The most likely suspects would be rogue elements of our national security establishment, probably some of the Deep State Neocons whom Trump had placed near the top of his administration.

This small handful of high-level plotters would have then drawn upon the resources of the American national security apparatus to actually carry out the operation. The virus and its dispersal devices might have been obtained from Ft. Detrick and CIA operatives or members of special forces would have been sent to Wuhan to release it…. In effect, what happened was a Dr. Strangelove-type scenario, but brought to real life.” (“American Pravda: George Orwell’s Virus Lab-Leak”, Ron Unz, The Unz Review)

So, here’s the question: Do you think recent developments lend credibility to your explosive theory or do you now believe that Covid-19 was merely “accidentally” leaked through human error?

Ron Unz– As everyone knows, over the last month the entire “mainstream narrative” of the Covid outbreak has been completely overturned. Just a few weeks ago, anyone suggesting the virus was artificial was denounced and ridiculed as a “conspiracy theorist” and any such statements were automatically banned by Facebook.

But exactly these same prohibited ideas are now widely accepted and promoted by leading figures in the media and political establishments. The 45-year veteran of the New York Times who spearheaded its Covid coverage has now admitted that he was completely mistaken, and that the virus probably came from a lab. The three billion Facebook users can now openly discuss this possibility.

The total collapse of this “natural virus” propaganda-bubble was produced by a self-published 11,000 word article by longtime science journalist Nicholas Wade. Yet the astonishing thing is that almost none of the crucial facts he cited in his article were new. Nearly all of Wade’s important evidence had been publicly available for a full year, but was simply ignored by our entire political and media establishment, partly because Trump took that position and they all hated Trump.

So the virus probably came from a lab. But the question now becomes “which lab?” Just as the MSM had promoted the totally unsubstantiated belief that Covid was natural, the MSM has now begun promoting the equally unsubstantiated belief that Covid accidentally leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, the evidence of any such Wuhan lab-leak is so thin as to be almost invisible.

It’s true that Chinese researchers at that lab were experimenting with related bat viruses, but many American researchers were doing very similar experiments, and for decades bat viruses have also been the central focus of America’s huge biowarfare program.

Wuhan is an enormously large metropolis of 11 million, much larger than New York City, and the Wuhan lab is located 20 miles(!) from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which was the earliest epicenter of the Wuhan outbreak. A distance of 20 miles seems pretty far for an accidental lab-leak.

Immediately after the initial Wuhan outbreak, the virus began infecting Iran’s top political elites, and killing a number of them. Isn’t it implausible that a random lab-leak in Wuhan would so quickly jump to the Holy City of Qom on the other side of the world?

There are many other aspects of the timing of the outbreak that seem very inconsistent with a random, accidental lab-leak.

Until a few weeks ago, the MSM and Facebook shut down anyone who disagreed with the “natural virus” theory, even though the evidence for an artificial virus had always been much stronger. They’ve now said “Oops! We were wrong. The virus probably came from a lab.” So I think they’ll now have a much harder time shutting down any debate about which lab.

Once people became aware of the basic facts of the virus, belief that it was artificial quickly collapsed. And once people become aware of the basic facts of the initial Covid outbreak, I think that belief in an accidental lab-leak will also begin to collapse.

Question 2–You seem to have anticipated my next question, but I’ll go ahead and ask it anyway. In another one of your articles, you say this:

“As the coronavirus gradually began to spread beyond China’s own borders, another development occurred that greatly multiplied my suspicions. Most of these early cases had occurred exactly where one might expect, among the East Asian countries bordering China. But by late February Iran had become the second epicenter of the global outbreak. Even more surprisingly, its political elites had been especially hard-hit, with a full 10% of the entire Iranian parliament soon infected and at least a dozen of its officials and politicians dying of the disease, including some who were quite senior. Indeed, Neocon activists on Twitter began gleefully noting that their hatred Iranian enemies were now dropping like flies.

Let us consider the implications of these facts. Across the entire world the only political elites that have yet suffered any significant human losses have been those of Iran, and they died at a very early stage, before significant outbreaks had even occurred almost anywhere else in the world outside China. Thus, we have America assassinating Iran’s top military commander on Jan. 2nd and then just a few weeks later large portions of the Iranian ruling elites became infected by a mysterious and deadly new virus, with many of them soon dying as a consequence. Could any rational individual possibly regard this as a mere coincidence?”

My question is this: Is this the smoking gun? In other words, do these two “attacks” on enemies of the United States strongly suggest Washington’s involvement?

Ron Unz– Well, it’s certainly an *extremely* odd coincidence for those who claim the global Covid outbreak was caused by an accidental, random lab-leak of a virus in Wuhan, China.

Iran is on the other side of the world from China, and very few Chinese visit the Holy City of Qom. So it’s extremely strange that the Covid virus would have jumped so extremely quickly from a Wuhan lab-leak to Iran’s top political leadership, which suffered the next major outbreak.

A few weeks afterward, the third major world outbreak began in Northern Italy, but 200,000 Chinese live and work in that region, and many had just returned from their Lunar New Year holiday in China. The Chinese population in Qom is absolutely negligible by comparison. The Italian outbreak makes perfectly logical sense while the one in Qom does not.

None of this constitutes proof, but it raises huge doubts about the likelihood of the random lab-leak hypothesis. By contrast, the deliberate release of a viral bioweapon seems a much more plausible explanation of both these outbreaks.

America has the world’s largest and most comprehensive biowarfare program, and America’s two leading international adversaries—China and Iran—were almost simultaneously hit by a mysterious, deadly virus. Suspicion seems to point in a pretty obvious direction.

If the Colombo crime family of NYC is locked in a bitter feud with the Genoveses, and two capos of the latter are found shot to death in a 24-hour period, maybe they both suddenly decided to commit suicide. But most sensible observers would also tend to consider other possibilities.

Question 3– Shortly after you published your explosive piece suggesting US Intel agents may have been involved in releasing Covid-19 among the Chinese and Iranian people, your website was deplatformed by Google and banned on Facebook? Would you briefly explain what happened and will you also tell us whether you think that your alleged offense was:

1– Suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab?
2– Or, suggesting that Washington might have used SARS-CoV-2 as a bioweapon directed at its geopolitical rivals?

In my opinion, ruling elites don’t really care if people think Covid was man-made. What they’re concerned about, is that people will think it was intentionally released. That is the thought they don’t want us to think.

Ron Unz– Obviously, all this is entirely speculative. But for six years our website had been publishing a wide variety of extremely controversial articles on all sorts of different subjects, and we had never had any problems with either Facebook or Google.

Then in late April 2020, I published my first long article laying out the substantial evidence that the global Covid outbreak might have been due to an American biowarfare attack against China (and Iran), and that article got very strong early traffic, with more Facebook Likes in the first few days than anything I had previously published.

But about ten days after it ran, our website was suddenly banned by Facebook. A few days later, our entire website was deranked by Google, so that all our web pages would appear near the very bottom of Google searches and almost no one would see them. The coincidental timing of these actions seems very suspicious.

At that point, I think we were one of the most popular websites to have ever been banned by Facebook. For example, our traffic far exceeded that of the venerable New Republic, a century old publication that had spent decades as America’s most influential opinion magazine. Although Facebook did publish an official report explaining that month’s bans, our name was barely mentioned, with almost all the pages of discussion devoted to obscure foreign websites in Georgia, Mauritania, or Myanmar, or those located in America’s major geopolitical adversaries such as Russia or Iran. The report explained the reasons for banning VDARE, “a website known for posting anti-immigration content” and then banned our own website for being “similar.”

This explanation seemed very strange. We do regularly republish VDARE articles, but since the beginning of 2020, these had only amounted to 41 of our 1,751 total articles and posts, representing just 0.2% of our content, and few of these VDARE pieces had anything to do with immigration. Meanwhile, Google provided no explanation at all for our sudden purge from their search results.

It seems likely that the sudden purges by Facebook and Google were due to our very extensive Covid coverage over the previous couple of months, culminating in my major article. Among English-language websites, the vast majority of mainstream outlets had been reporting that the virus was obviously natural and denouncing anyone who suggested it came from a lab as “crazy conspiracy theorists.”

Meanwhile, large numbers of right-wing, anti-China, or pro-Trump websites regularly claimed that the Covid outbreak was due to a lab-leak in Wuhan, and sometimes suggested that the virus was a Chinese bioweapon. I think we almost alone in focusing upon America’s huge and well-documented biowarfare program, sometimes publishing important articles that had been rejected elsewhere, and pointing suspicion in that direction.

Because we were banned by Facebook and Google, what should have became a debate over three origin Covid possibilities—a natural virus, a Chinese virus, or an American virus—became a year-long debate between only the first two.

Given enormous negative impact the Covid epidemic has had on America and the rest of the world, it’s easy to understand why our political leadership would be extremely concerned if people merely began to even consider the possibility that the virus may have been produced by an American government lab, let alone deliberately released. And persuading Facebook and Google to block such theories would make perfect sense.

Question 4– There’s a part of your theory I have a problem with. You say: “CIA operatives or members of special forces (may) have been sent to Wuhan to release “(the virus) This could be true, but why do you exclude the possibility that Chinese scientists may have been working either secretly with their US counterparts (Baric, Fauci?) or that the Chinese leadership is cooperating with foreign elites and Intelligence agencies to help them implement authoritarian policies in their own countries? Is that too far-fetched for you to even consider?

Ron Unz– Well, anything’s possible, but there’s simply no evidence of that.

Given the extreme recent hostility between the American and Chinese governments, I think it’s very unlikely that any senior officials of the two countries would be secretly cooperating behind the scenes in releasing the Covid virus.

Since the Trump Administration spent much of the Spring claiming that the Chinese had “covered up” the outbreak, large teams of investigative journalists from our top media outlets devoted many weeks of effort to tracking down the facts. Based upon all available evidence the Chinese government only discovered the existence of this mysterious, unsuspected new virus near the end of December, and almost immediately informed the World Health Organization.

Once the Chinese realized that Covid was highly contagious and spreading around Wuhan, they reacted very quickly. Some local officials tried to ignore or minimize the problem, costing them about a week, but once the national government discovered the danger, it quickly ordered massive public health measures, locking down the entire city of 11 million, and soon expanding the lockdowns to the region and then the entire country, confining 700 million Chinese to their homes for several weeks. This allowed them to completely stamp out the virus, and within a few months, the country was almost back to normal.

Meanwhile, the American government mostly ignored the entire potential problem and the possibility that the virus would back into the U.S. Our CDC botched the production of testing-kits, so for many weeks we had no way of knowing if the virus was starting to spread here. Trump and his supporters engaged in wishful thinking, claiming that the virus wasn’t dangerous and might disappear “like magic.” The American government only started to take the problem seriously after the horrific outbreak in Northern Italy.

Since the American government was harshly denouncing China during this entire period and reacting so differently to their Covid outbreaks, I think it’s very unlikely that American and Chinese leaders had planned the Covid outbreak together or were secretly cooperating in any way.

On the other hand, it’s certainly true that for many years Chinese scientists and American scientists had worked together on viral research, and jointly published papers. But that’s true of scientists all around the world, and until the last few years, China and America had generally been on pretty friendly terms. I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that the American NIH provided some funding to the viral research of the Wuhan lab, and until the Covid outbreak, nobody would have cared about that. As far as I know, America provides research grants to scientists all around the world, and other countries, including China, do the same thing with American research.

And despite all the media hype, I also didn’t see anything particularly surprising in those Fauci emails that were recently released. American financial support for the virus research of the Wuhan lab had never been a secret, and I’ve been reading about it for over a year. However, once Trump and Pompeo began claiming that devastating Covid epidemic had been caused by a Wuhan lab-leak, the situation obviously changed. If they were correct, then everyone in America even somewhat associated with the Wuhan lab could share some of the gigantic blame, including Fauci. So it’s hardly surprising that Fauci and all the others began hiding their connection and also using their influence to try to (dishonestly) persuade the media that the virus was natural, thereby protecting the Wuhan lab and also themselves.

That worked for about a year, and nobody paid attention to the issue. But now that the media has come around to the virus being artificial, the Wuhan lab has become a prime suspect, putting Fauci and the others back in the hot-seat. Fauci seems a dishonest federal bureaucrat, but our entire government is filled with such people, and the focus on Fauci seems ridiculous. I think it’s quite unlikely that Covid was produced in Wuhan or leaked out, so Fauci’s dishonesty was totally unimportant.

Finally, while it’s remotely possible that America intelligence agencies had some spies in Wuhan or even the Wuhan lab, there seems no evidence of this. In fact, the only secret intelligence we allegedly received about events in Wuhan came from a third-country source, which demonstrates our own total lack of information and agents. If we did release the Covid bioweapon in Wuhan, it’s pretty unlikely that we were able to recruit local Chinese agents to carry out the operation.

For about a year, most experts had agreed that the Covid outbreak in Wuhan probably began in late October or early November of 2019. By a remarkable coincidence, there were 300 American military servicemen visiting Wuhan for the World Military Games, which ended in late October. That visit would have provided perfect cover for America to slip a couple of operatives into the group, and have them release the virus in the city. With thousands of foreign military personnel traveling around and doing sightseeing, any risk of detection would have been minimal. That seems much more plausible than the risk of finding and using local Chinese operatives.

What would Americans think if 300 Chinese military officers paid an extended visit to Chicago, and immediately afterwards a mysterious, deadly viral epidemic suddenly broke out in that city?

Question 5— Alot of people who read this interview are going to think, “The United States is not capable of crime like this.” But, over the years, US-funded laboratories have created, modified and stockpiled all manner of toxic agents including “six mass-produced, battle-ready biological weapons”, namely, anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, Q-fever, VEE, botulism and God knows what else. The United States has also authorized highly controversial human research programs that involved people and groups who were never informed that they were being used as guinea pigs in a government lab experiment. As Jeanne Guillemin said more than three decades ago:

“The entire experimental legacy is dismaying, from the hundreds of dead monkeys at Fort Detrick to … the vaccinated volunteers in Project Whitecoat, strapped to chairs amid cages of animals in the Utah sunlight as Q fever aerosols are blown over them. Most chilling are the mock scenarios played out in urban areas: light bulbs filled with simulated BW agents being dropped in New York subways, men in Washington National Airport spraying pseudo-BW from briefcases, and similar tests in California and Texas and over the Florida Keys.”

US biological weapons were allegedly used in Korea, Vietnam and Cuba although the evidence is not conclusive. The history of these weapons does increase the probability that rogue elements in the national security state, could put them to use if they thought there was some advantage in doing so.

So what do you say to those people who think that the United States would never use a bioweapon, like SARS-CoV-2 , against an enemy?

Ron Unz– Sure, many Americans might regard it as “unthinkable” that their country could have used a biological weapon against China. But it is very widely recognized that for decades America has had the world’s leading biological warfare program, and in fact during the 1950s, it received government resources comparable to our nuclear weapons development efforts.

There seems quite a lot of evidence that those American bioweapons were used during the Korean War, though the claims have been disputed and they anyway turned out to be rather ineffective compared to conventional weapons. There are also claims bioweapons were used against Cuba and perhaps Vietnam.

In any event, our biological warfare capability certainly does exist, with the Ft. Detrick facility being our leading lab. Trump’s lackadaisical response once Covid began leaking back into the U.S. hardly suggests that he initially realized it might be a dangerous bioweapon, so he seems to have been entirely ignorant of the facts. Therefore, the attack against China (and Iran) would have been a rogue operation, probably carried out by elements of the national security apparatus associated with the Deep State Neocons at the top of his administration.

If someone sufficiently senior had been behind the plot, I think it would have been easy for the conspirators to have drawn upon America’s military resources to carry out the operation, with all those lower-level participants believing that they were part of a fully-authorized strike against America’s leading geopolitical adversaries, just as our government soon afterward assassinated Iran’s top military commander. Probably someone such as such as Secretary of State (and former CIA Director) Mike Pompeo or National Security Advisor John Bolton would have had been able to orchestrate the attack.

Such individuals had the means, motive, and opportunity, so it seems absurd for the media to so totally ignore this possibility.

Here’s something to consider. The worst biowarfare attacks in American history occurred just after 9/11, with Anthrax mailings to important political and media figures stampeding Congress into the passing the Patriot Act. The Anthrax attacker attempted to implicate Islamic terrorists in his attacks, but the FBI soon determined that the Anthrax came from our own Ft. Detrick facility, and eventually declared that a government biowarfare researcher named Bruce Ivins was responsible and closed the case, just after he supposedly committed suicide. Whether or not Ivins was actually guilty may be disputed, but the attack was almost certainly carried out by rogue elements of our national security apparatus. So it hardly seems impossible that the Covid outbreak had somewhat similar origins.

As a rogue operation, the Covid attacks could have been organized by a very small handful of individuals, with virtually none of the exhaustive bureaucratic planning that would normally take place. Under such circumstances, the plotters might have casually minimized the possible risk that the disease would leak back into America or our NATO allies, resulting in the disaster which eventually occurred. After all, the previous SARS and MERS coronavirus epidemics had left both America and Europe almost totally unscathed.

There’s one particularly telling clue that has been almost entirely ignored by both the mainstream and alternative media. Most experts believe that the Covid outbreak in Wuhan probably began in late October or early November, but since infections took some time to spread and the virus was initially undetectable, no one in the Chinese government was aware of the outbreak until the end of December. However, several American government sources later revealed to ABC News that as early as November 2019, our Defense Intelligence Agency had distributed a secret report to government officials warning that a “cataclysmic” disease outbreak was taking place in Wuhan. The Pentagon afterwards denied the story, but Israeli TV independently confirmed that the report indeed existed and had been distributed to our NATO allies and Israel. The secret DIA report was prepared in “the second week of November,” at a time when probably only a couple of dozen people were starting to feel a little sick in Wuhan, a city of 11 million, and more than a month before anyone in the Chinese government discovered the outbreak. These facts seem almost impossible to explain if the virus was either natural or was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan lab.

I think that the combination of all this evidence, together with additional material, strongly supports the hypothesis that the Covid outbreak resulted from an American biowarfare attack against China (and Iran), probably a rogue operation orchestrated by the Deep State Neocons in the Trump Administration.

Whether or not others agree with me, it seems absurd and ridiculous for this very serious possibility to be so completely excluded from virtually the entire mainstream and alternative media. I suspect that the reason for this total silence is that the evidence supporting this theory is sufficiently compelling that merely presenting it would quickly convince much of the Western public that a biowarfare attack was the most likely scenario. Therefore, the reaction has been a total blackout of these facts, which have remained unmentionable.

The Biden Neocons have now replaced the Trump Neocons at the helm of our government, but very little has changed in our dangerously anti-China foreign policy. And with the mainstream media wholeheartedly in the Biden camp, their attacks against China on all sort of dubious grounds have intensified. Indeed, the huge outpouring of current media support for the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis—which argues that Covid was secretly developed by the Chinese, possibly as a bioweapon—only became possible after their hated enemy Trump had left office.

America has the world’s largest biowarfare program, the Trump Administration focused on China as our greatest geopolitical threat, and the Deep State Neocons whom Trump hired were notoriously reckless individuals. It would hardly take a great deal of thought for the media to connect these dots and begin at least considering the obvious possibility they suggest.

PS1: An interesting article about the origins of COVID by Andreas Canetti

 Thirdly, a virus leaked from the Wuhan Lab cannot explain why it was found in September-November 2019, in Italy, France, and the US already before the Wuhan outbreak. The hypothesis of Lathman & Wilson cannot explain the complicated history of the virus by letting it “jump” from Yunnan to the Wuhan Lab in 2012, and then accidently being released from the lab in late 2019. Shi Zhengli on the other hand has difficulty to explain why the virus seems to have appeared in Europe before China.