Newly-unearthed StateDept cables show the US government’s early concerns about the deep ties and research collaboration between a Wuhan lab and the Chinese military amid the search for COVID-19’s origins.
The heavily-redacted cables, which warned about the connections between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the People’s Liberation Army in the summer of 2020, were obtained by U.S. Right to Know through the Freedom of Information Act, and appear to be based upon information analyzed by the American Institute in Taiwan , which is essentially the U.S.’s unofficial embassy in Taiwan.
One cable from August 2020 had the email subject line “Taiwan Analysts Probe PLA Links to Biotech Labs and Companies in Wuhan.” The cable described Wuhan as “China’s Biotech Center and a Model City for MCF Development” and then listed a series of subheadlines detailing the Wuhan lab’s long-standing links to the Chinese military, with the sections underneath entirely blacked out.
The Trump State Department released a fact sheet in January 2021, which included information on “Secret Military Activity” at the Wuhan lab. Sen. Marco Rubio released a lengthy report on COVID-19’s origins in May, where he wrote that “the WIV maintains a collaborative relationship with the PLA AMMS that is routine and robust." The senator said that “personnel employed by the PLA AMMS appear to maintain a working presence at the WIV, and in some cases, serve in institutional roles” and that “some WIV researchers were trained by the PLA AMMS.
Another newly-released cable from August 2020, sourced from the AIT in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, had the subject line of “[Redacted] Say CCP Aggressively Mobilizing Civilian Resources for Military Purposes with Major Focus on Biotech.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment in August 2021 stating that four U.S. spy agencies and the National Intelligence Council believed with just"low confidence" that COVID-19 most likely had a natural origin.
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