> Logic would dictate you'd want to give up all the evidence of bad bat soup as fast as possible.
No logical narrative for PRC is this:
Covid19 never originated in PRC in the first place - Wuhan was merely the first identified cluster, being a large transit hub in the world's most populous country that just happens to have some labs which contributed to PRC's flu monitoring system picking up the novel disease in the first place. The most likely origin is some cave down south, likely (hopefully for PRC) across the border in Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia. And PRC should be praised for identifying and reporting novel virus relatively promptly, even more so for unprecedented locking down and buying the world time, which most countries squandered. That geopolitical adversaries of PRC who failed to contain convid are looking for an escape goat, and there is zero reason for PRC to cooperate by entertaining their conspiracy theories, let alone open up sensitive PRC facilities to inspection because frankly sovereignty violations like that are not "common" for large countries - it's the kind of weapons inspection tier treatment enforced upon losers of wars. PRC already entertained WHO investigation. That's enough. Now go validate PRC conspiracy theory that it was a leak from Fort Detrick, which is just as valid, knowing full well there's about zero chance US would open Fort Detrick to international scrutiny (though it would certainly shut PRC up if US did). Ultimately PRC would never submit to that kind of sovereignty violation doubters deem necessary even if she's innocent due to history and basic geopolitics. It's not going to change enough minds to matter.
Of course I'm being somewhat hyperbolic, but not by much. Official PRC position is to let science work it out, which will take time, which is to say spend decades years sampling all the bat caves in South Asia and best case find something to clear PRC or worst case implicate PRC through process of elimination. But by then so much time has passed that it would barely be consequential and in all likelihood there's going to be an entire universe of conspiracy theories to cloud any findings. Or the fact that PRC's superior covid response could vindicate it's claim that it was simply best prepared to identify novel virus that did not originate in PRC because in retrospect, the idea that west was best prepared to deal with pandemic is a meme. Or that time will bring clarity to all the covid geopolitics, and conclude lab-leak is just one of many propaganda campaigns in nascent Sino-US cold war. And frankly it'll probably work, because none of this is even wrong and history has tendency to be rewritten.
>PRC already entertained WHO investigation. That's enough.
Entertained? Hardly. But if there is one thing China does well it's manipulating others to partake in or at least not dispute their highly effective propaganda machine.
The WHO is at the mercy of the PRC for access, and PRC knows that and has exploited it to their advantage from the very beginning, from changing long held naming conventions, to delaying access, to altering messaging so it falls in line with PRC's narrative.
>Now go validate PRC conspiracy theory that it was a leak from Fort Detrick, which is just as valid, knowing full well there's about zero chance US would open Fort Detrick to international scrutiny.
How is it just a valid? The virus was discovered in Wuhan, not near Fort Detrick.
China denied the outbreak was occurring and suppressed info on it for weeks and months, but now we're supposed to recognize their superb ability in identifying novel viruses? What good is early detection if it's a secret and only benefits locals? Why would they do that and keep international flights open if they suspected foreign origin and weren't taking actions consistent with containing an outbreak at its source?
That's either incompetence or suppression/censorship or both, but it in no way evidence of ability to identify early or respond quickly and effectively.
Hardly is more than enough courtesy considering US officials was pushing lab leak. WHO is also at the mercy of US funding and pressure that entails. Including entertaining US initiated lab leak propaganda which is more effective and well funded than what PRC is capable of. And of course PRC gets to dictate access and terms, it has sovereignty.
>How is it just a valid? The virus was discovered in Wuhan, not near Fort Detrick.
The virus was _identified_ in Wuhan, does not mean originate there. PRC lab leak conspiracy is Fort Detrick leak + Wuhan military game spread. Again, it's PRC conspiracy but holds equivalent validity in terms of discourse power if CCP wants to exploit to it counter pressure WHO to access Detrick for investigation.
>China denied the outbreak
No PRC notified WHO of novel corona virus a few weeks after first cluster was discovered. It was praised as extremely expedient at the time.
> keep international flights open
Because it's expatriation flights. PRC is not going to lock foreign nationals in China, countries have right to recall their citizens. And inbound flights had actual competent quarantine setup, ergo PRC could maintain covid0 whereas most places that did security theatre temperature checks could not.
> That's either incompetence or suppression/censorship or both, but it in no way evidence of ability to identify early or respond quickly and effectively.
Identifying within weeks and responding with some incompetence/censorship/corruption is still overwhelmingly better than what most developed countries did with multi months heads up after Hubei lockdown. Despite how they topped the pandemic response index. Incompetence is relative and the fact is, places with high interconnectivity with PRC like Korea, Japan, TW, Singapore, Australia etc all managed to suppress covid pre omicron based on info provided by PRC and competent epidemiological interventions. And their import case statistics show PRC never exported that much covid cases post Hubei lockdown. It was completely manageable, whereas most of their import cases came from EU/NA.
Point is, lab leak could very well be true, but there's plenty of datapoints for history to be rewritten in PRC favor once/if geopolitics cool down, ergo it's in PRC interests to wait. At then end of the day, covid origin is going to be determined more by propaganda, less science.
No logical narrative for PRC is this:
Covid19 never originated in PRC in the first place - Wuhan was merely the first identified cluster, being a large transit hub in the world's most populous country that just happens to have some labs which contributed to PRC's flu monitoring system picking up the novel disease in the first place. The most likely origin is some cave down south, likely (hopefully for PRC) across the border in Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia. And PRC should be praised for identifying and reporting novel virus relatively promptly, even more so for unprecedented locking down and buying the world time, which most countries squandered. That geopolitical adversaries of PRC who failed to contain convid are looking for an escape goat, and there is zero reason for PRC to cooperate by entertaining their conspiracy theories, let alone open up sensitive PRC facilities to inspection because frankly sovereignty violations like that are not "common" for large countries - it's the kind of weapons inspection tier treatment enforced upon losers of wars. PRC already entertained WHO investigation. That's enough. Now go validate PRC conspiracy theory that it was a leak from Fort Detrick, which is just as valid, knowing full well there's about zero chance US would open Fort Detrick to international scrutiny (though it would certainly shut PRC up if US did). Ultimately PRC would never submit to that kind of sovereignty violation doubters deem necessary even if she's innocent due to history and basic geopolitics. It's not going to change enough minds to matter.
Of course I'm being somewhat hyperbolic, but not by much. Official PRC position is to let science work it out, which will take time, which is to say spend decades years sampling all the bat caves in South Asia and best case find something to clear PRC or worst case implicate PRC through process of elimination. But by then so much time has passed that it would barely be consequential and in all likelihood there's going to be an entire universe of conspiracy theories to cloud any findings. Or the fact that PRC's superior covid response could vindicate it's claim that it was simply best prepared to identify novel virus that did not originate in PRC because in retrospect, the idea that west was best prepared to deal with pandemic is a meme. Or that time will bring clarity to all the covid geopolitics, and conclude lab-leak is just one of many propaganda campaigns in nascent Sino-US cold war. And frankly it'll probably work, because none of this is even wrong and history has tendency to be rewritten.