As top U.S. officials prepare to meet their Chinese counterparts for their first face-to-face meeting during the Biden administration, former State Department chief investigator who oversaw Task Force on the origins of the COVID-19 virus tells Fox News that he not only believes the virus escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but that it may have been the result of research conducted by the Chinese military, or People’s Liberation Army, with a bioweapon.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology is not the National Institute of Health,” David Asher, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News in an exclusive interview. ‘It worked with a secret, secret program. In my opinion, and I am only one person, my opinion is that it was a biological weapons program. “
Asher has long been a ‘follow the money’ man who has worked on some of the most classified intelligence investigations for the State Department and the Treasury under both Democratic and Republican governments. He led the team that uncovered the international nuclear procurement network led by the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, AQ Khan, and uncovered key components of North Korea’s secret uranium enrichment. He believes the Chinese Communist Party has been covered up en masse over the past 14 months.
And if you believe, as I do, that maybe this was a weapon vector that went wrong, not released intentionally, but is in development and then somehow leaked, then this has turned out to be the greatest weapon in history Asher said during a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute: The Origins of the COVID-19: Policy Implications and Lessons for the Future. ‘You’ve taken out 15 to 20 percent of global GDP. You killed millions of people. The Chinese population has hardly been affected. Their economies roared back to become number one in the entire G20. “
Asher says the Chinese government’s behavior reminds him of other criminal investigations he has overseen.
“Motive, covering, conspiracy, all the attributes of guilt are associated with this. And the fact that the first group of victims surrounded the institute conducting very dangerous, if not dubious investigations, is significant, ”said Asher, who hired the Chinese government as the State Department’s chief representative during the 2003 SARS outbreak. .
Initially, China said that the COVID-19 virus originated in the Wuhan Seafood Market, but the problem with China’s theory: the first case was not related to the market. Last fall, the US obtained information indicating that there was an outbreak among several Wuhan lab scientists with flu-like symptoms that left them hospitalized in November 2019 – before China reported its first case. Asher and the other Hudson Institute panel experts said China announced in 2007 that it would work on genetic bioweapons using controversial “gain of function” research to make the viruses more deadly.
The Chinese publicly stopped talking about their research in the Wuhan laboratory in 2016. That was, Asher believes, when the People’s Liberation Army stepped in and transitioned from research on biological defense to bio-crime. In the same year, China’s main state television commentator
“We’ve entered an area with Chinese bio-warfare, and we’ve also used things like viruses. I mean, they have made a public statement to their people that this is a new priority under Xi’s national security policy, ”explains Asher.
The Chinese publicly stopped investigating coronavirus “disease vectors that could be used for weapons” in 2017, according to Asher, while the military began funding the research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“I doubt that’s a coincidence,” Asher said.
Meanwhile, US bioweapons researchers are still mostly focused on older bioweapons such as anthrax. A major turning point in the quest for defense against coronavirus bioweapons included controversial ‘gain of function’ research and a breakthrough in the Netherlands that took the scientific community by surprise.
“I remember being in The Hague with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the day the news became known that a laboratory in the Netherlands funded by the National Institutes of Health was conducting a profit of function research on highly pathogenic avian influenza, with especially to increase transferability. of that very dangerous flu virus, ”recalls Andy Weber, the former deputy secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs under President Obama.
The Obama administration has quickly put a moratorium on this type of investigation, fearing it could become a terrorist playbook. The Trump administration lifted the moratorium in 2017, but stopped NIH funding to the Wuhan lab in April 2020 after the pandemic started.
According to experts, biosafety has long been a concern with China’s biosafety level 4 laboratories.
“China has been involved in this type of virus research, the SARS outbreak, since 2003,” said Miles Yu, the State Department official who, along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, wrote a recent WSJ opinion piece about the virus. origin. “The biosafety standard in China is very low and very dangerous. So this is an accident that has yet to happen. ”
When the team sent to Wuhan by WHO in February visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they didn’t put on biosafety suits and spent 3 hours indoors, but reports say they didn’t have access to the scientists or data they needed to rule that out completely. the virus escaped from the laboratory.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at the time, “It should be noted that virus traceability is a complex scientific issue and we need to provide adequate space for experts to conduct scientific research.” He added, “China will continue to work with the WHO in an open, transparent and responsible manner and contribute to better prevent future risks and protect the lives and health of people in all countries.”