Time to shut up for anti-science, mudslinging politicians

Picture provided by Qianli to Guangming Daily

In early July, US media reported that White House sources had revealed that the Biden administration was becoming aware that a "retrospective investigation" might not yield absolutely definitive answers and that it would be difficult to find strong evidence that the virus was "made in China." Since then, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes and CIA Director William Burns have also said that the intelligence community's investigation may not be conclusive either.

On July 27, some members of Congress sent a joint letter to Biden, saying that if the 90-day assessment does not reach a highly credible conclusion, Biden should instruct intelligence agencies to continue their investigation until their conclusions on the origin of the virus are highly credible. It seems that in the minds of some US politicians, only the "Wuhan laboratory leak" theory, or continued speculation surrounding "Wuhan laboratory leak", is the result they want.

As British author and political and international relations analyst Tom Fowdy put it, the WHO considers the introduction of the novel coronavirus into humans via an intermediate host to be "relatively likely" to "very likely," but the US refuses to acknowledge this conclusion. Indeed, unless China is declared "guilty," no conclusion will be sufficient to satisfy Washington.

From last year's blatant reference to the virus as the "Wuhan virus" to their blatant withdrawal from the WHO, some American politicians have tried to politicize the pandemic, stigmatize China’s connection to the virus’ emergence and make use of the origin-tracing work to hype up their presumed "Wu Han laboratory leak" theory.

The purpose of some American politicians is clear: to bury the truth in a pile of lies, thus shifting the responsibility for their own ineffectiveness in fighting the pandemic and achieving the political goal of smearing and suppressing China. According to an article on the website of Wired magazine, some Americans are trying to use the long and complicated scientific process of virus tracing to deepen people's doubts, pour dirty water on China and shift the focus of domestic political conflicts in the US.

Looking back at the timeline of the "Wuhan lab leak" theory, we can see that some American politicians have never stopped speculating, but the hype has a clear time frame.

Last year, when the "Wuhan lab leak" theory was in full swing, the US was bogged down in a pandemic crisis. At that time, Biden claimed: "Due to Donald Trump's lies and incompetence in the past six months, [we] have seen one of the greatest losses of American life in history,"

And now look at this year. In addition to the high vaccination rate in the US, which has since declined, and the surge in cases caused by the Delta variant of the virus, the pandemic has intensified social problems such as racial discrimination and violent crimes that have accumulated since the pandemic, depriving the US of the self-awarded halo of "beacon of democracy". This is intolerable for some American politicians, who claim that "democracy still works", but there is nothing they can do about those chronic social problems.

Since they can no longer convince the public that "America is good", they can only tell them that "foreign countries are bad". Defaming China seems to be a shortcut. Pavel Feldman, deputy director of the Institute of Strategy and Forecasting at the Russian People's Friendship University, said it is clear that the US is now launching a massive campaign against China, and the first to oppose Beijing was Trump, whose conspiracy accusations were mocked by Democrats from time to time. But today, the Biden administration has clearly followed in Trump's footsteps.

However, with a wrong direction, all efforts would be in vain. Who can imagine that the US didn’t use its strength to fight against the pandemic while tried its best to bring shame on China, which has done more harm than good to the American society, which has suffered so much from the pandemic. The pandemic tests not only a country's medical prowess, but also the governance ability of its government. Every grave crisis is also an opportunity to build consensus and promote reform. But apparently, some American politicians have not seized the opportunity and failed to turn the public's panic and anxiety into a positive attitude to fighting against pandemic. Meanwhile they failed to build a bipartisan consensus on a scientific anti-pandemic campaign, which has intensified the trend of political polarization and social divide.

The New York Times columnist Charles Brow pointed out that even if the pandemic is contained in the US, it could have a long trail and the lingering effects would last for years or even decades, given the more than 35 million people in the US who have been infected with the novel coronavirus, the current surge in gun violence, and the racial disparities that the pandemic has exacerbated.

Last year an article in the Irish Times lamented that the world used to hate America, love America or envy America, but now for the first time it thinks America is pitiable.

In fact, ordinary Americans are the truly pitiable. The pandemic has brought unbearable trauma to them. As citizens of the US, who is supposed to have the most advanced medical resources, they shouldn't have to go through so many hardships. What is hateful is that some politicians in the US do not reflect on their own bahavior but blame others. In the end, they harm others and themselves, and aggravate the damage of the global pandemic.

Origin tracing work needs the guidance of science rather than political manipulation. It is advised that some American politicians let scientific work depend on scientific attitude and principles. It is of great importance to show political courage and focus on protecting their own people, on enhancing their competitiveness instead of pushing the absurd "Wuhan laboratory leak" theory.

Contributed by Cao Yuanlong

Translated by Wang Ruoxin