China’s Bioresearch Crosses the Line From Humane to Inhumane
The Liberty spoke with an expert regarding the state of bioresearch that China is currently advancing.
Dr. Xiaoxu Sean Lin (林晓旭) is a Ph.D. microbiologist, and a policy analyst and commentator for the NTD. He was a U.S. Army officer and the lab director of the Viral Diseases Branch at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He was the co-founder for Sound of Hope Radio and also served as the vice president of Pan-Pacific American Leaders and Mentors. He is currently a member of the Committee of Present Danger: China. He was a survivor of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. He is also the host for two YouTube Channels: “LinXiaoxu Official Channel” and “Global Health Watch with Dr. Sean Lin“. Dr. Lin has also been frequently interviewed by The Epoch Times, VOA, RFA and SOH. He also founded the Truth Warriors Alliance (www.theTWA.org) to unite some online influencers.
(Interviewer: Hanako Cho)
China Covers Evidence of Covid
Cho: We believe that China is waging a Third World War with the coronavirus, as it performed research on the virus for years. The Chinese government believes an asymmetric warfare to be a very covert and efficient way to lead to the decline of the U.S., but the general public appears to be convinced that the coronavirus emerged naturally. What do you think of this current situation?
Dr. Lin: The Chinese government keeps claiming that birds or other animals were the source of the virus. Also, the Chinese government has done a very thorough cleaning in the Wuhan market to avoid any further investigations.
I also saw a report around last May, a report regarding the collection of environmental samples in this Wuhan market, the Huanan Seafood market, and the job was poorly done. They did not conduct any testing on any live animal stocks in the Wuhan markets. If the Chinese government truly believes that the outbreak originated from a Wuhan market, they would do
animal testing. So far, for any outside experts, there is no animal testing data that we can evaluate, so there’s no idea what the genuine intermediate animal hosts would be for this outbreak in Wuhan. It has been a theory the government tried to push at the beginning of this
outbreak, and later on, they kept blaming any outside countries for spreading the virus
into China. Basically, the Chinese government tried to cover up the outbreak — the origin
of this Covid-19.
Cho: Do you mean that they are successful in covering up the issue by conducting large-scale propaganda?
Dr. Lin: Yes, pretty much. They control all the propaganda machines in China. As well, they’ve been able to spread their stories through their megaphones in different parts of
the world using WHO as a mediator right? So the Chinese propaganda machine has a
huge footprint globally through CCTV, through Xinhua News Agency, through their
contacts with so many big news agencies in different countries. So those news
agencies were able to spread the Chinese government propaganda. And after the
CCP colluded with WHO, WHO is always representing China’s official tones. From this
perspective, I think the CCP has been successful in diverting the world’s true attentions on
what the genuine origin of this outbreak would be.
The Chinese government keeps mixing two concepts together: one is the origin of the outbreak, and one is the origin of the virus. From a virology aspect, the origin of a virus can be a very, very daunting task. It can take decades to figure out. And even nowadays, right about 40 years after people discovered HIV, people still have no idea how HIV started. It is commonly believed that it was from chimpanzees, but there is no direct evidence. So it can always be a very daunting task to figure out a virus’ origin.
But the origin of the outbreak in Wuhan is a different story. For a government, it should be able to identify who would be the patient zero, and who would be the intermediate animal host. So I
think the government tried to mix these concepts together so that people without a scientific background would feel, ‘Anyway, it’s a complicated question to ask. The government may be right,’ so they are confusing people on these.
China Collects Global Genetic Data Using WHO and Alibaba
Cho: You mentioned that Dr. Tedro and WHO colluded with China, but it seems that he changed his stance about China on this issue. What do you think about his remarks?
Dr. Lin: I think, for them, the mutual interests bound them together. Of course, the WHO does not have all the members have colluded with China, but sometimes the WHO secretary may face pressure from some of their internal experts. So overall, the WHO has collaborated with China, colluded with them for a long time.
The CCP has systematically tried to infiltrate it and control this organization. The CCP has been sending waves of interns, young scientists working with WHO, and you can see the CCP’s footprint in every level of WHO’s bureaucracies. There’s a deep influence there.
Also, the WHO has collaborated with China’s big tech company, Alibaba. Alibaba had a big data center in Hangzhou, and WHO signed an agreement with Alibaba to establish a big data research center in Hangzhou in 2018. WHO provided a large volume of data to Alibaba, basically to the Chinese government. It’s a very dangerous collaboration, and China has been very greedy in collecting many other countries’ health-related data: your biometrics information, your blood type and all kinds of personal identifiable information.
Cho: For what purpose?
Dr. Lin: China is collecting this information because they want to, firstly, boost their
artificial intelligence capacity in analyzing different ethnic groups, races and bio-features globally. You can also use these information to identify biomarker profiles for different ethnic groups.
Secondly, they would like to collect genetic information for different ethnic groups to understand some of the advantages or disadvantages in people’s gene expression profiles of different ethnic groups.
These approaches will significantly improve their AI technologies. The more data they collect, the better algorithms they can create with it and the more advanced they are in the predictions on human behaviors. They have made significant progress.
Also, they are interested in developing human engineering, such as improving their soldiers with genetic modifications. The more they understand genetic information or biomarker information from different ethnic groups, the more, or the faster, they are at developing these technologies. That’s why it’s very dangerous to allow the Chinese communist regime to collect all this information through WHO channels.
The WHO gives the data to them. You can imagine what kind of collaboration they had. The WHO have to collaborate with a big data center that Alibaba established. They are providing big data to Alibaba.
Cho: It sounds very unethical from the western standpoint.
Dr. Lin: Yes, of course, the WHO has not revealed the details of the collaborations. If any of the data from other countries are being shared with Alibaba, the WHO needs to get permission from other countries as well, but it is a collaboration not many other countries, especially developing countries, are paying attention to. They trust in the WHO. These countries have been implementing many projects, for example, different antibiotics and vaccine studies. The WHO definitely collects a lot of information via these projects.
Super Soldiers and Genetically Engineered Dogs
Dr. Lin: China wants to develop their super soldiers. They started to do engineering on some animals already. They already have some of the super dogs. I saw a report about the police force in Shenzhen. They’ve actually been presenting some of the experimental results after they engineered their police dogs. So, they’re working on different experiment to enhance soldiers’ performance.
Those are very dangerous studies challenging the bioethics. We know in China, for any ethical research study, as long as it can be put under the umbrella of the People’s Liberation Army, the public cannot challenge the ethical issues on these kinds of research. They can do anything they want there.
Cho: What should we do to bring more focus on this very important issue? Because not many people are aware of these kinds of extremely bad experiments going on in China.
Dr. Lin: For the public, it’s hard. It needs a government to put more pressure on the Chinese government to let them reveal some of the very high-risk, military-related research works still being conducted, whether it’s bioweapons, bioengineering of animals or human beings.
International pressures are needed. I urge international society and governments to put pressure on the Chinese communist regime. If anyone else knows of these collaboration details, they can expose it to the media and to the public.
Cho: Can state-of-the-art technology such as CRISPR 9 be used to create this kind of superhuman soldier?
Dr. Lin: Yes, they can use this CRISPR 9 technology to do engineering. Just like the professor, He Jiankui, who had done this kind of experiment on those embryos from the twins. His study was actually funded by the Chinese government. If he did not announce his research to the public, people didn’t even know that he was doing this kind of study.
I think the fundamental issue here is that the Chinese communist regime doesn’t care about these ethical issues. They will do anything as long as it is advantageous to their military.
Dangers Behind CCP Building More Virology Labs
Dr. Lin: Even for the virus studies, the whole world needs to be alert now more than ever before because China is demanding every province to build up P3, P4 labs—at least a P3 lab at every province level. So now, you have more Pandora’s boxes in China being built up.
Even for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the top virology institute in China, when the U.S. Department of State sent experts there to investigate their operation and safety issues in 2018, their report clearly indicated that there were security loopholes and safety problems. If the Wuhan Institute of Virology cannot manage it properly, how can you imagine that a different, provincial-level lab could handle the dangerous pathogens safely?
It’s very easy now for the Chinese government agencies’ research institute to grow the virus, as they have the virus stocks now. It’s not a question of whether China has engineered the virus. Now, the question is how they’re going to use this virus, and how they will do additional engineering on the virus. Any terrible mistakes or safety breaches in any of the new labs could result in a bigger disaster too.
Cho: Do you think this was created as a bioweapon?
Dr. Lin: For outsiders, it’s very hard to reach a final conclusion on that. However, I’m pretty sure that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been conducting gain-of-function studies on SARS or other related coronaviruses, especially on the spike protein. I’m certain of that. Even when their collaborative research with U.S. scientists was suspended, they continued in China. There’s no doubt about this. There are publications indicating that.
I’m not sure if they can engineer a full virus exactly as potent as SARS-CoV-2 because a lot of the knowledge is still missing regarding the functions of different non-structure proteins and other operating open-frame proteins that are not commonly studied. The coronavirus is a huge RNA virus; a lot of the proteins’ functions are not fully understood, especially how the virus creates different mechanisms to evade immune systems. I don’t think the scientists are at the level of understanding some of the knowledge yet.
The “other operating open-frame proteins” should be “other open-reading-frame proteins”.
However, the spike protein has been thoroughly studied. There are also established platforms or mechanisms to engineer the spike protein. Maybe they can do a gain-of-function study to have a better vaccine, basically to try to create a challenging virus strain, so that they can use it to challenge vaccine studies and designs.
It’s a very dangerous study though, and I don’t know if they exactly engineered it as a bioweapon. But it’s very suspicious because the Wuhan Institute of Virology is basically like a military compound. On the top levels, there are civilian research institutes that belong to the Academia Sinica. At the lower levels, they are military, PLA-controlled research facilities and so, of course, there are strong collaborations there.
Cho: A journalist from The Washington Times, Bill Gertz, said, ‘We’ve got to get to the bottom of the origin of this virus. And if we don’t, China is going to hit us with more viruses.’
Dr. Lin: I’m fairly confident that the Chinese communist regime can hit any part of the world with a different virus or bacteria. You don’t even need to dig up the origin of the virus to see if they can do this.
They have more virus. They have viruses incubating in many labs right now, not just in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Cho: How many do you think they have?
Dr. Lin: Right now, around 30 different labs in China have the capacity to grow the virus stocks. We don’t know which one will be the time bomb.
Cho: Are you saying that there are at least 30 known labs already experimenting?
Dr. Lin: Well, they can grow the virus easily. They can store these patients’ samples in their facilities, grow the virus, and any research can get the local government’s financial support.
Human Testing Vital for China’s Virus Development
Cho: When I interviewed an Indian expert last year, she said China has been thinking about conducting asymmetric warfare because they’re still in a very weak position in terms of ordinary weapons. But if they can use this kind of bioweapon, they can surpass the U.S. very easily. What do you think of this?
Dr. Lin: China has already been conducting asymmetric warfare for decades. They haven’t necessarily used bioweapons, but the digital world. It’s part of their unrestricted warfare. As for bioweapons, they are actively developing these kinds of weapons. There’s no solid proof for the world that they have been small-scale testing locally—it could have happened in some other remote provinces in China.
China claimed that they joined the Geneva Bioweapons Convention, but I don’t think people can trust the Chinese government that they have complied with the restrictions after they joined. The Chinese communist regime knows very well, like the Nazis during World War II, the importance of experimenting with bioweapons on human beings. CCP has been conducting these kinds of research for a long time. It is very hard to find this proof because they’re secret operations.
Specific Ethnic Groups May Be Targeted
Cho: Do you think it’s possible for China to develop viruses that target a specific race using CRISPR-Cas9?
Dr. Lin: I don’t know. From a virology aspect, it’s a potential. Just like HIV, certain ethnic groups have certain deletions, like the delta-32 deletion in certain chromosomes. Those people have different capabilities to be infected by HIV. With more advanced genetic sequencing technology, people understand human gene expressions a lot more than the past. Thus, if they wanted to experiment with the virus to explore different mutants with different binding affinity for different receptors or co-receptors in different race groups, it would be dangerous.
Cho: Now we have more infectious types of virus mutants that are spreading around the world. Do you think this is a mutation or a completely different type?
Dr. Lin: It is definitely a mutation, but I think it’s a very dangerous mutant because this virus is an escaped mutant from convalescent serum therapies and also antiviral treatments, because this mutant emerged from immunocompromised patients who went through these convalescent plasma treatments antiviral therapies. The patients’ bodies don’t have a complete immune system to battle with the virus. The virus is propagating on high levels with a large variety of existing mutants. When you put outside pressure, the antibodies as well as antivirus drugs there choose mutants that let them escape from the pressure. When these new B.1.1.7 mutants emerged, they had the potential to evade immune systems, especially from the antibodies against the previous circulating virus strength, so it has become more dangerous, and the virus also has higher transmissibility. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine had a report recently indicating that this new mutant virus has 56% higher transmissibility than previously circulating strains.
It’s circulating fast and also more dangerously because it has more capability to infect younger generations, the people under 20 years old, much more than before. This is very dangerous, and my suspicion is that the virus may attempt to use other co-receptors more efficiently. They might not just have a higher capability to bind to the ACE2 receptor. I think more research must be done to explore how the virus interacts with other co-receptors as well. The use of co-receptors can be very different in different virus transmission stages, which can significantly
influence virus pathogenesis and disease progression as well.
Cho: What can we do to hold China accountable on this issue? Because if China already knew that it transmits human-to-human, and they didn’t stop Chinese people from travelling from China to the United States and Japan, that’s a problem.
Dr. Lin: I think the U.S. was quite vocal last year in holding the Chinese communist regimes accountable. But due to the current political environment, it’s very hard for the global community to hold the CCP accountable because of the political elite, the globalist plan and the global reset schemes, that all have communist influences. CCP has also been infiltrating many countries for decades. Especially now, they can play games together with WHO, saying, “Oh, we will allow outside investigators to go into China to find out the origin of the virus,” which is pretty much just a cover. The international society is trying hard to unite together to hold the CCP accountable.
I think the U.S. was much more clear last year making the distinction between the Chinese communist regime and the Chinese people, which I think is an important change. The U.S. government under the Trump administration has taken much stronger measures in terms of trade, tariffs, human rights and religious freedoms, by sanctioning PLA companies and delisting Chinese companies. All these measure will indirectly hold the CCP accountable, so the people and governments are aware of the vicious nature of the CCP. If government agencies don’t have a clear understanding of this, it is impossible to battle against the CCP.
Biden Administration Infiltrated by CCP Influence
Cho: The next U.S. administration might change its policy towards China. What do you think?
Dr. Lin: The Biden administration, or what I’d like to call the post-Trump administration, is very different. Because the leader’s family has such strong ties with the CCP, they could easily be blackmailed or controlled by the CCP. The far-left groups in the U.S. pretty much control the democratic party now. The U.S. is on a superspeed train to socialism. You can see the agenda they’ve been pushing forward. I think the U.S. is in a very dangerous situation. I don’t think they will take a strong stance against the CCP. They may do something on the surface, maybe condemn China human rights and say a few words, but I don’t think they will do anything concrete to deal with the threat from the CCP.
Cho: That sounds like a disaster. You presented a speech at the meeting on Human Rights Day and exposed the CCP’s criminal acts, such as organ harvesting, infiltration of the U.S. society and cover up of the virus pandemic by the CCP in China. You stated that this important information is hidden from the public in China. To overturn the CCP, we think it is of the utmost importance to reveal true information to the public. Can you share your thoughts on this?
Dr. Lin: Organ Harvesting is one of the most heinous crime that the CCP has conducted against innocent Chinese people, especially prisoners of conscience including Falun Gong practitioners. The large scale of organ harvesting sanctioned by the Chinese communist regime has been ongoing for more than two decades. It is a shame that the international society, especially WHO, is still helping CCP cover up this dark operation that has been hugely profitable to the CCP and turned it into a nation-wide industry.
China’s Economy Suffers Gravely
Cho: Not only organ harvesting, but the important information is now hidden from the public, like the unemployment rate or bad economic policy. It is also said that inflation is on- going in China, so if the truth is revealed to the public, some changes might occur because frustration is piling up among the people.
Dr. Lin: Yes, and I think one of the critical issues is to break through the information blockages and take down the great firewalls. If more information from China is exposed, the whole world will understand the true situation in China. I think a lot of Chinese people know of the pathetic situation.
For example, in the financial sector, this includes revealing information bout the high percentage of non-performing loans, the high volumes of printing currencies, the high inflation rate and the very high unemployment rate. Even the Chinese Premier acknowledged that China has about 600 million people with monthly incomes less than 1000 renminbi (equivalent to 154 U.S. dollars). You can see the unemployment rate is very high, especially under the Covid-19 pandemic, so many industries have changed their supply chain structures or have moved out of China. China’s economy relies heavily on trade, so many factories shut down in China when orders from other countries dropped.
I actually saw video documentaries about Shenzhen. In these cities, some of the most prosperous district or manufacturing hubs have pretty much shut down from Covid-19. I think China’s economy is in a very fragile situation. That’s one of the reasons that the civilians and non-state-owned enterprises are facing the danger of being absorbed by the CCP to become a state-owned enterprises now a days, like Alibaba.
It is rumored that the CCP is really, really, short of money right now. Even the financial center in Hong Kong is facing this danger. Basically, I think the whole world needs to wake up to the fact that the CCP is not as strong as they seem. It is also vulnerable. It’s facing a challenge of collapsing from the inside.
These clear, imminent dangers that CCP is facing, have been covered up by their gestures to open up the financial market. They finally admitted to the WTO, after 20 years, by saying, “We tried to fulfill our original promise, we want to open our financial market to let foreign capitals enter China, to allow foreign companies to have a bigger control of their company share, which is more than 50% now, and even let some of the U.S. Wall Street financial companies have full control of their companies in China.” When CCP finally does this, it’s because they are extremely short of money. It’s like a vampire yearning for fresh blood. This is the situation. The Western companies, however, might say, “Oh, we finally have a chance of entering China having full control of the company. We can make more money there.” It’s actually much riskier there.
China’s true situation will be further exposed this year, in 2021. People will see how much the Chinese economy is suffering. You will witness a very hard landing, and the economy will pretty much collapse in China, especially with the new waves of virus attacking China. China has been desperately covering up pandemic situations. In so many provinces, in so many cities, there are outbreaks of the virus, and their local government is talking about it describing it as being in war time. They keep manipulating and suppressing the real data for the numbers of infections and related deaths. They do this because there’s political pressure for the local officials.
Secondly, they did not want the public to know the true situation so the local government could avoid some accountability issues. The virus is spreading pretty fast in China. If the virus outbreak in China surfaces to a level that the local governments cannot cover this up, it would be a big disaster. I think this year China will suffer a lot more than last year in terms of outbreaks.
‘CCP Is a Criminal Organization’
Cho: The European Union (E.U.) and China made an investment agreement recently. Western countries have the tendency of making a distinction between trade and human rights issues. What are your thoughts on this?
Dr. Lin: The E.U. has been in favor of the socialism ideologies for a long time, and many other E.U. countries cannot distinguish the Chinese communist regime from the Chinese people. They think that China is still a big market, and they can take China’s money when their economy isn’t going well. So many of them mistakenly think that China is their Hope and Savior.
This is why the Chinese government can easily buy their politicians. Through their Belt and Road Initiatives, the CCP has been influencing and controlling many countries in Europe. It’s very hard to imagine that even in Lombardy, Italy, the Chinese government has their own police working and patrolling the streets. This simply suggests that their top politicians are so corrupted, working with the Chinese communist regimes just for some money. I think the E.U. is making a huge mistake.
The Trump administration was actually a lot clearer on this imminent threat that the CCP presented to the world, while E.U. is making a mistake.
CCP Does Not Represent Chinese People
Dr. Lin: Yes, the CCP always hides behind the sovereignty issues. They hijack the Chinese people, saying, “We’re representing the Chinese people. You have to deal with me.” It’s just like the Nazis, right? If they were very clear that the CCP is like the Nazis, a terrorist organization, a transnational criminal organization, then everyone can work together to take down the CCP and let the Chinese people have freedom. I deeply hope the international society can clearly see that CCP is a criminal organization and treat them like one.
Cho: This is very sad. Unfortunately, Japan’s political and business circles are mostly pro-Chinese government, and as a whole does not have anti-Chinese conscience. We very much desire to change this situation. How do you think Japan should change? How do you think Japan should face the threat of the CCP?
Dr. Lin: Fundamentally, I think there needs to be a big awakening in Japan. The CCP is not equivalent to the Chinese people. Many of the Japanese people have good relations with the Chinese people. They’ve been doing investments in China for a long time, and many Chinese companies have invested heavily in Japan in the past. It has become a very intertwined relationship.
However, the Japanese society needs to have a clear understanding that the Communist Party has been taking advantage of them. They’ve been influencing the Japanese political circle for a long time as well to attract Japanese investment and money into China to support the Communist Party. If there is not a regime change in China, then the money that Japanese companies invested in China will be taken by the communist elite. The communist elite are getting rich while the society is getting more polarized. Most Chinese people are hurt in this completely polarized economy. The money from Japan is feeding the demons of the Communist Party instead of supporting the Chinese People.
More people in Japan need to see this clearly. The politicians collaborating with the Chinese communist regime are hurting the Chinese people. I hope more civilian organizations and politicians in Japan are vocal in condemning the Chinese communist regime’s aggressiveness, military aspects, high-tech aspects, and suppression of religious freedom. It’s not anti-Chinese, it’s just anti-CCP. I definitely hope more Japanese people can be courageous and point out the evils of the communist party.
Cho: Thank you for your advice. I believe China needs to switch from a one-party system to a multi-party system. What are your thoughts on this, and what are you going to do for a future, multi-party system in China?
Dr. Lin: I don’t think the problem in China right now is whether it’s a single party or multi-party. The top priority is the collapse of the CCP. If they still exist, the multi-party system will not work. CCP is a greedy monster. They would try to control other parties, so it just needs to collapse first.
After the CCP collapses, China can have all kinds of different, capable people emerge. Naturally, China will have a more open society and different political parties may emerge. The first priority, though, is to destroy the CCP and release the Chinese people from its slaveries. Currently, the CCP is so corrupted and tightly manipulates public opinion as propaganda machines. This is why many people in China are completely unaware of the dangers of the country. I worry that the country will be divided soon. Many of the provinces will divide China into regional powers when the central government of CCP loosens their control due to some of the conflict of interests in different provinces. More Chinese will suffer through these kinds of chaos.
Take Down China’s Firewall
Cho: This is my last question. You are a member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China. As a member of the committee, what are you going to do to collapse the CCP?
Dr. Lin: One of the most important campaigns that we’re doing is urging the government to designate the CCP as a transnational criminal organization. We’ve been talking to administrations and also the Congress to push this topic. It is also very important to enhance sanctions against PLA-related companies and put more pressure on Wall Street to delist some of the Chinese companies there. We must also educate the public to not invest in China. We have a project called Divest China.
There is another project to unite the people who’ve been suppressed by China, including the people outside China under the terrible influence of the Belt-and-Road Initiative, like Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan.
These people suffer due to China’s Belt-and-Road initiatives that result in their resources being taken by the communist regime, local people’s loss of jobs to the Chinese government’s projects and the China’s human rights atrocities.
The Committee on Present Danger also has a project called Captive Nation project, where we try to unite more people and educate them about the threats caused by the CCP. Under the leadership of Brian Kennedy and Frank Gaffney, we are working on different fronts to target the CCP. We are trying to put more international pressure on the CCP and awaken more people.
I hope that these kinds of messages will be delivered into China through different channels, especially to the people who jump over the firewall seeking more information. I definitely hope more power and resources will be put in to taking down the great firewall that China has established. We are in an information war right now. When more truths are exposed and spread, the CCP will see a quicker collapse.
Cho: Thank you for much for a great interview. I appreciate it very much.