Bombshell docs show Wuhan lab where Covid ‘Patient Zero’ worked was conducting ‘shadow’ experiments for Chinese military
WUHAN scientists were carrying out classified military research at “shadow labs”, bombshell emails from the US State Department reveal.
The leaked messages shed more light on the shady links between the Chinese army and the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the time when the Covid pandemic was exploding across the world.
Shi Zhengli – the top researcher at the lab dubbed “batwoman” for her years of work on bat coronaviruses – has repeatedly denied any link to the military.
But emails uncovered by US Right to Know (USRTK) expose chilling connections between the Wuhan lab and China’s People’s Liberation Army.
It follows claims that were working with Chinese military to create a mutant virus and pursue bioweapons just as the pandemic started.
The US State Department has already claimed that the Wuhan lab had engaged in classified research on behalf of the Chinese military since 2017.
And the messages obtained by USRTK show further evidence of the nefarious work being carried out in Wuhan.
They reveal the army’s involvement with the construction of the lab – and staff with “possible PLA ties”.
One of the emails points to evidence of eerie “PLA shadow labs” at the Wuhan lab.
Another appears to address the mix of civilian and military research – specifically Beijing’s emphasis on “military-civil fusion”.
And one heading suggests “robust cooperation between WIV and PLA AMMS” – likely a reference to the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
A third email exposes the way in which Beijing censored the outbreak of Covid in the vital early days of the pandemic.
“Initial Outbreak Could Have Been Contained in China if Beijing Had Not Covered It Up,” it reads.
Gary Ruskin, executive director of USRTK, said the bombshell emails reveal evidence of significant Chinese military involvement in the lab.
He called on the Biden administration to release the heavily redacted emails in full.
He told The Sun: “The cables are significant, because they reveal that the State Department has evidence of significant Chinese military involvement at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“This suggests that classified research may well have been performed there.
“That suggests that those who claim full knowledge of the totality of the WIV’s research, and deny that SARS-CoV-2 was held at the WIV prior to the pandemic, may not have been familiar with the details of any classified research performed there.
“And therefore, their denials may well come from a place of ignorance, if not obfuscation, and cannot be trusted or relied upon.
“One of the cables claims that the ‘Initial Outbreak Could Have Been Contained in China if Beijing Had Not Covered It Up’.
“That is a grave allegation whose basis must be revealed.
“The State Department owes that evidence and analysis to every one of millions of families across the world who lost a loved one to Covid.”
Investigators believe scientists running secret dangerous experiments combining the most deadly coronaviruses, which reportedly caused a leak from a Wuhan lab.
And it is believed vaccine research was going on there in the autumn before the outbreak.
The cables are significant, because they reveal that the State Department has evidence of significant Chinese military involvement at the Wuhan Institute of Virology
Gary Ruskin
The findings follow a team of US investigators who combed through top-secret intercepted communications and research.
They say there is no published information on the work because it was done with researchers from the Chinese military – which was funding the projects.
A report released by Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence claimed Covid might have leaked from a lab in Wuhan during a secret Chinese bioweapons programme.
Richard Ebright, biosafety expert and professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, said the lab’s focus was on biodefence research.
He told The Sun: “The research had no non-biodefence civilian applications.
“Its purposes were bioweapons-agents discovery, bioweapons-agents development, and bioweapons-agents threat characterisation.
“The new releases confirm that not just the US government, but also China’s government, pursued the research as biodefense research.”
In 2016, researchers at the Wuhan lab discovered a new fatal type of coronavirus in a mineshaft in Mojiang, Yunnan province.
But they failed to warn the world about it – which was subsequently transported to the Wuhan lab and the work became classified.
Jamie Metzl, a former adviser to the WHO on human genome editing, told USRTK: “If it should be proven that the PLA was involved in or collaborating with the WIV prior to the outbreak, that would fatally weaken arguments against the research related origin hypothesis.
“The entirety of the argument against the research related hypothesis is based on the unverified word of Shi Zhengli.”
Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at University of New South Wales, said: “In terms of PLA connections and shadow research, that is likely.”
Both China and the Wuhan lab have furiously denied any allegations – but evidence of a lab leak has been piling up over the last two years as scientists, researchers and governments hunt for answers and step forward with evidence.
And next week, the US is set to release previously classified material on the origins of Covid – including the links to the Wuhan lab.