China Newsbase
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The China News Database was last updated at 08:27AM on December 31, 2023.
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19 articles matching the search query.
Why is it so hard to get a straight answer about where COVID came from? Q&A with John Sudworth
BBC correspondent John Sudworth left China in 2021 after years of harassment for his reporting on human rights abuses in Xinjiang and COVID. His latest project is a podcast on the origin of COVID-19, and it’s a fascinating look into one of the most polarizing issues of our time.
Editor’s note for February 15, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
‘COVID free and feeling fantastic in the Year of the Rabbit’ — Phrase of the Week
A newly coined idiomatic pun captures the mood as China enters its New Year holidays, with many people recovered from COVID feeling good about the year ahead.
COVID-19 originated from Wuhan market, new studies find
Two new studies suggest that COVID-19 first spread in humans at the same live market in Wuhan where the initial infections were reported.
Editor’s note for Friday, November 19, 2021
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: The Women’s Tennis Association threatens to pull out of China if Peng Shuai’s safety is not assured and her sexual assault accusation is not taken seriously; a prominent virologist changes his mind about the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory, now concludes the virus began to spread at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market; U.S. intelligence claims that China is seeking to build a military facility in the United Arab Emirates; Lithuania allows Taiwan to open a de facto embassy, incurring Beijing’s wrath.
COVID origins: China denounces inconclusive U.S. intelligence report that calls for more transparency from Beijing
The 90-day review of U.S. intelligence on COVID-19 origins, which was completed in August, was highly inconclusive and even discounted several points cited by lab-leak theory proponents, according to a newly declassified summary. Beijing did not respond to the contents of the report, which it dismissed as “political and false.”
Editor’s note for Wednesday, September 29, 2021
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn. Today: Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 chairs a Politburo meeting on biosecurity. “It will be interesting to watch how the government rolls out plans to eliminate zoonotic diseases in the coming year: this will tell us more about where officials believe COVID-19 emerged than any official statements on the matter.”
China rejects WHO plan for Wuhan lab audits, suggests COVID origins study continue in other countries
Beijing put the kibosh on any hopes the World Health Organization had for further research in China on how the pandemic began.
Scientists reconsider accidental lab leak theory as COVID-19 origins remain unclear
While the dominant origins theory for COVID-19 involves a natural source and no laboratories, the exact way that the pandemic began remains unknown. Some prominent scientists are becoming more skeptical of China’s denials of a lab leak, and want to see more records from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
After inconclusive WHO report, China says next step of COVID origins search should include U.S. military lab
After the WHO released a report that raised more questions than answers about the origins of COVID-19, Beijing pushed back against accusations that it had interfered in the inquiry. The Chinese Foreign Ministry then suggested that the Fort Detrick biological lab in the U.S. should be investigated next.
WHO in Wuhan: A refusal to share raw data, or ‘standard scientific debate’?
WHO scientists had arguments in Wuhan over access to detailed patient data. But they appear to disagree about whether those debates amount to a “refusal” by China to share information essential to tracing the origin of COVID-19.
Takeaways from the WHO investigation — frozen-food imports are a target
The WHO went to Wuhan, and Beijing is happy.
Beijing promotes vaccine nationalism and new COVID-19 conspiracies
Chinese state media, and even some of China’s top scientists, are promoting messages to undermine confidence in non-Chinese vaccines. At the same time, Beijing is again spreading conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19.
China’s COVID-19 response: A year of ‘government secrecy and top-down control’
China’s initial failure to respond quickly to COVID-19 as it emerged in Wuhan was due to a “political logjam,” the New York Times reports. But the AP reveals that political controls have only tightened in the time since, with new research on the origins of COVID-19 monitored and subject to approval by a task force set up by Xi Jinping.
COVID-19: Beijing shared ‘minimal information’ with WHO in early days
The Associated Press has published another report about the early days of China’s coronavirus response that punctures Beijing’s official, sanitized narrative of a transparent and immediate response to the crisis.
China rejects Australian beef after PM Morrison calls for independent COVID-19 investigation
The Chinese Foreign Ministry didn’t bother to deny a connection between “erroneous words and deeds” of Australia, including calls for more transparency from China on COVID-19, and export blockages.
U.S. allies dismiss Trump administration’s Wuhan lab conspiracy theory
If U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo really does have “enormous evidence” that COVID-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan, he has not shared it with any of America’s closest allies, including Britain and Australia.
Trump administration points finger at China for COVID-19 while Chinese state media revives conspiracy theories
The charitable way to interpret this is that Pompeo got “confused” about the position of U.S. intelligence agencies. Another way to interpret it is that he was deliberately spreading misinformation about the nature of the virus.
