How China and the World Health Organization Deceived the World About the Coronavirus Pandemic

In the first of the Center for Security Policy’s five-part Biosecurity Webinar series, China expert Gordon Chang and national security expert Claudia Rosett discussed the Chinese government’s criminal negligence that caused the coronavirus to become a pandemic and how the World Health Organization’s (WHO) collaboration with Beijing covered up the danger and denied the world crucial time that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Center President Fred Fleitz, the panel’s moderator, led off by introducing the Biosecurity Webinar Series which was launched in conjunction with the  Center’s groundbreaking new book Defending Against Biothreats: What We Can Learn from the Coronavirus Pandemic to Enhance U.S. Defenses Against Pandemics and Biological Weapons, available in paperback and on Kindle on Amazon.com.  Fleitz explained how Defending against Biothreats was written by 11 expert authors who look at the origins of the virus, U.S. biodefenses and what U.S. policymakers must to do defend the American people against future natural and man-made pandemics and other biothreats.

Drawing from his chapter in the book, Chang, a prolific author and frequent cable news expert guest on China and the coronavirus, spoke bluntly about his view that Chinese officials knew or should have known that their actions early on – and their deceptions – would result in this deadly virus infecting the world.  Chang discussed the aggressive efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to deceive the world and deflect attention from China’s responsibility for the coronavirus pandemic through intense propaganda and retribution against states that have blamed China for the pandemic or called for independent inspectors to visit Wuhan.  Chang views China’s mishandling of the pandemic one of many reasons that the United States must isolate China from the rest of the world.

Rosett, a Policy Fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum and award winning journalist, gave a detailed account of how the World Health Organization and its head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus knowingly collaborated with Beijing’s coverup and efforts to deflect blame from Beijing for the coronavirus pandemic.  Rosett described past and planned WHO inspections of Wuhan bio labs as frauds and not independent investigations.  Rosett agreed with President Trump’s description of the WHO as a “puppet of China” and supported his decision to withdraw the United States from the organization.  Rosett believes the WHO is not unique as a UN organization – most of them are inefficient, corrupt and dominated by the Third World and China.  She believes it is essential for the U.S. to work multilaterally on global health threats outside of the WHO to get away from the corruption and Chinese control that is plaguing the WHO.