There is something very odd about the mainstream media’s attitude towards the theory that the deadly coronavirus was the result of research in biological warfare at a secret Wuhan lab. The stridence with which the possibility of bioweapon development is dismissed is startling.

Consider the article, ‘Where the Coronavirus Bioweapon Conspiracy Theories Really Come From’ (https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/coronavirus-bioweapon-conspiracy-theories.html), that the Left-leaning Slate posted on February 27. It begins with: “Diseases bring out the worst in us, inspiring racist attacks, xenophobic public policy, and isolationism.” One would have thought it to another rant against US President Donald Trump, but it was on coronavirus.

Then there is Business Insider that slammed an American conservative politician for raising concerns China’s bioweapon programme. It posted (https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/a-gop-senator-keeps-pushing-a-thoroughly-debunked-theory-that-the-wuhan-coronavirus-is-a-leaked-chinese-biological-weapon-gone-wrong/articleshow/74178724.cms) on February 17: “Sen. Tom Cotton is persistently resurfacing a debunked conspiracy theory which claims the deadly coronavirus sweeping the globe is the work of Chinese scientists at a secret Wuhan lab for biological warfare.

Cotton faced such hostility because he had the guts to question the intentions and actions of China which, at any rate, is not the exemplar of good international behavior. “We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,” Cotton told Fox News. “We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.”

Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai countered Cotton. He said to a news channel that the bioweapon theory is “very harmful, it’s very dangerous, to stir up suspicion, rumors and spread them among the people. For one thing, this will create panic. Another thing is that it will fan up racial discrimination, xenophobia, all these things that will really harm our joint efforts to combat the virus.”

Notice how cunning the Chinese elite are; they know how to please the liberal establishment in the West: just mention the pet intellectual themes like racism and xenophobia, and you have won liberals. This is exactly what Cui did.

To be sure, there is no clinching evidence to show that the coronavirus came into being because of bio-warfare research, but its opposite is also true: there is no evidence to show that bio-warfare research did not cause the coronavirus.

In this context, it is important to notice what Foreign Affairs wrote (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-03-05/us-chinese-distrust-inviting-dangerous-coronavirus-conspiracy): “The [Chinese] government’s actions have lent credibility to the thesis that the coronavirus accidentally escaped a laboratory. In February, China appointed Major General Chen Wei, China’s top biowarfare expert, as head of the BSL-4 laboratory at Wuhan Institute of Virology. Because of Chen’s background, the appointment fueled suspicions about the virus’s possible connection to the BSL-4 lab. Then, on February 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted the need to incorporate shengwu anquan (which in Chinese could mean either ‘biosecurity’ or ‘biosafety’) into its national security regime.”

Besides, China’s bellicosity is an issue. Cotton’s retort to Cui is instructive: “Where did it start? We don’t know. But burden of proof is on you & fellow communists.”

Further, on January 26 Washington Times quoted Dany Shoham, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who has studied Chinese biological warfare, saying that said the Wuhan institute is linked to Beijing’s covert bio-weapons programme. “Certain laboratories in the institute have probably been engaged, in terms of research and development, in Chinese [biological weapons], at least collaterally, yet not as a principal facility of the Chinese BW alignment” (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-link-china-biowarfare-program-possible/).

Unfortunately, the MSM is too obsessed with its war on racism and xenophobia to focus on these facts and China’s malevolence..