Bill Gertz reveals how China made the world sick

Washington Times correspondent details how the Chinese Communist Party lied and exploited the pandemic

Want to understand the origins of the Chinese Coronavirus Pandemic? Bill Gertz offers a short but fact-filled analysis in a new 68-page book released this week by Encounter Books in its Broadside series. Gertz sees China’s actions in the Pandemic as part of its long-term campaign to weaken and surpass the United States of America.

There are a few things Gertz establishes in his book How China’s Communist Party Made the World Sick. First, China lied about the origins of the virus. Second, China’s PR machine has worked to undermine lab origin theories. Third, China compromised the World Health Organization (WHO). Fourth, many outside China have cooperated in spreading China’s talking points.

That last point is of interest. China launched at the direction of Xi Jinping a concerted effort to change the narrative. According to Gertz, “On February 3, Xi Jinping, in a speech to the Politburo Standing Committee, directed CCP organs to ‘take the initiative to influence international opinion’ in shaping the global narrative of the Wuhan coronavirus.”[1]

Gertz details how China accused the US military of spreading the virus in Wuhan. First, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prepared the ground by spreading “false rumors” on the Chinese Internet. A few weeks later, a Chinese official promoted the theory on Twitter—and did so by pointing to a known Russian propaganda outlet in Canada.[2]

And China exploited other sources to downplay the possibility of a lab origin for the virus.

Gertz writes, “Many in the international scientific community appear to be running interference for the party by dismissing all public discussion about Chinese laboratory research on bat coronaviruses as a conspiracy theory.”[3]

It is not only the scientific community. Evangelical Elites like Ed Stetzer called lab origin talk a conspiracy theory. Americans in general and Christians in particular should be asking why so many Elites are spreading Chinese PR and shifting the conversation from China’s malfeasance?

And Gertz does a great job providing counters to China’s timeline and virus origin story. He writes, “The virus is believed to have been living quietly among China’s horseshoe bat population for thousands of years until suddenly, mysteriously, it mutated.”[4] And, “There are no caves containing Horseshoe bats within five hundred miles of Wuhan.”[5]

Gertz even provides important timeline analysis. He explains, “If the first people infected showed up at Wuhan hospitals between December 1 and 15, that places the first infection – Patient Zero – at some time between November 15 and December 1.”[6]

And Gertz details questionable lab work in China. He reports there is “a clear indication that scientists had been engaged in laboratory manipulation of bat coronaviruses to determine how the microbes use special receptor cells that permit them to latch on to human cells and cause infections.”[7] And all of that research was happening in Wuhan within blocks of where the virus allegedly originated.

Gertz point in providing all these details is the need to push China for answers—answers the CCP refuses to give.

If China has nothing to hide, why won’t they answer these questions?

And, perhaps even more importantly, why are so many organizations and Western Elites defending and enabling China?

Answering that question will have profound political consequences for the rest of this century.

If you want to understand how the Chinese Communist Party operates, then Gertz short book is an eye opener.

[1] Gertz, p. 46.

[2] Gertz, p. 47.

[3] Gertz, p. 8.

[4] Gertz, p. 21.

[5] Gertz, p. 22.

[6] Gertz, p. 21.

[7] Gertz. P. 24.