Bio Weapons Convention: N-doctrine needs revision; Time to set strategic framework?
19 May, 2021 | newsx bureau
The role of China in sinking the world into an unprecedented crisis is making the headlines once again. In a recent development, the debate over biological warfare has emerged after Chinese documen...
The role of China in sinking the world into an unprecedented crisis is making the headlines once again. In a recent development, the debate over biological warfare has emerged after Chinese documents allegedly revealed that Chinese military scientists discussed weaponizing SARS coronavirus in 2015.
According to Chinese virologist Dr. Le-Meng Yan, the coronavirus was discovered after a lot of investment by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and was intentionally released from a lab as a bio-weapon. Yan, a former postdoctoral fellow at Hong Kong University, fled to the United States in April of last year. She claimed in a paper published in September of last year that coronavirus was created by China in a research lab. When people realize the virus came from a lab, China’s goal, according to Yan, is to deny the allegations and use misinformation to mislead the world.
American Journalist Barton Gellman had once said “In the field of biological weapons, there is almost no prospect of detecting a pathogen until it has been used in an attack”. COVID is plaguing the world for almost one and a half years now, millions have succumbed to it, across the globe people have shared horrible experiences, countries have gone under phases of lockdown, movements have halted, all these due to a microscopic virus.
The surfacing of the documents from China has raised serious questions for China. A question that China has always found to be irksome. When Australia last year had raised questions over China’s handling of the Covid, An irked China responded snarkily that Australia wanted to present China in a bad light.
Now, with the revelation of these documents a debate has raged again on the origin of the Virus. China this time should find a constructive and truthful answer. An in-depth article by science journalist Nicholas Wade has also made a strong case for the “lab-engineered virus” theory. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, a possible source of the virus, is thought to have previously collaborated with the Chinese Army on a massive project to investigate animal viruses.
With the revival of QUAD and Joe Biden’s earnest appeal to the QUAD nations to work together, we may see top nations of the world working together to build an Anti-Bio Terror strategic command. And guess who does not like QUAD – CHINA.