How can America hold China to account? Its ruling party has committed human rights abuses and bears responsibility for the pandemic that has killed an estimated three million people and crashed economies worldwide. The Biden administration is making feckless requests of the CCP — and not demanded much more. As questions mount about the origins of the COVID-19 virus and the growing possibility that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and may even be an engineered virus created through gain-of-function research, (research in-part outsourced and paid for by American taxpayers), begging China to cooperate with the US, its allies and the World Health Organization isn’t going to cut it.
While attempting to answer questions at the G7 summit, President Biden once again made a plea for China to cooperate, by insisting they provide more transparency. He said the same thing during his campaign in 2020, but was never pressed by journalists on the next course of action, should those requests fall on deaf ears, which they are sure to do:
‘One of the things I raised — and others raised, I wasn’t the only one who raised this at the G7 — is that we don’t know, we haven’t had access for the laboratories to determine whether or not — and I have not reached a conclusion because our intelligence community is not certain yet — whether or not this was a consequence of a…from the marketplace of a bat interfacing with animals in the environment that caused this COVID-19, or whether it was an experiment gone awry in a laboratory.’
‘It’s important to know the answer to that,’ the President continued. ‘We have to have access. The world has to have access.’ What is once again missing from that statement is a mention of any consequences China might face for not cooperating with such an investigation. This is a step above writing it off as a kooky conspiracy theory, as much of the media and Dr. Anthony Fauci attempted to do over a year ago. The lack of action and any sign of significant international consequences for China is troubling.
Secretary of state Tony Blinken made similar toothless demands on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. More insisting, followed up by zero action. When Wallace broached the subject, Blinken obfuscated. ‘What is the President prepared to do unilaterally — not through the WHO, which has already been stiffed by the Chinese — what is he prepared to do unilaterally to press China to provide, to share more evidence, more information, especially from the Wuhan lab?’ asked Wallace.
Blinken replied, ‘The leaders of the G7 have come together insisting that China cooperate with the so-called Phase Two study by the WHO to really get to the bottom of what happened.’ The G7 and the Biden administration can insist until Boris Johnson turns into a giant blueberry, but insisting China cooperate is a pointlessly lost cause. Surely Blinken is too smart to not know that?
It’s not the first time Blinken has been vague. As Jerry Dunleavy wrote in the Washington Examiner, Blinken refused to tell Congress what actions the administration would take against China if they continued to stonewall against international investigations. ‘What we’ve seen, unfortunately, more than unfortunately, from the PRC since the beginning of this crisis is a failure to meet its basic responsibilities in terms of sharing information, providing access, and doing that in real time with transparency. That was true at the start, it remains true, unfortunately, today.’
‘I don’t want to get into, you know, hypotheticals going forward in the future about what we would or would not do,’ Blinken continued, ‘but I think I can say with confidence that there is going to be an increasing international demand that countries, including China, meet their responsibilities when it comes to providing information, access, and transparency on global health, including COVID.’Just to be clear: everyone involved agrees that China actively worked to thwart the first investigation by the World Health Organization. A WHO-led probe into the origins of COVID is akin to O.J. Simpson leading a hunt for the ‘real’ killer. Biden and his G7 amigos know that China is not allowing access to the Wuhan laboratory and the international body-politic seem to have come to a consensus that China is not forthcoming with any certifiably true information about the emergence of a pandemic in which millions died.
So what now? This is the question the Biden administration must address on the world stage, in a concise and clear manner that China understands. Demands made of China without the threat of action are impotent — and China knows it. The simple fact that the United Nations was never called to order to address the pandemic and China’s role in it should be sufficient justification to dissolve that organization completely and turn the pretty headquarters in Manhattan into low-income housing. The time for insisting and demands is over. Journalists must pressure Biden into describing what he’s prepared to do on China, whether it be sanctions, economic action or international pressure, all difficult tasks given China’s grip on industry, the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Biden has been ‘insisting’ on transparency from China for months now, with little to no results. The old man needs a new approach.
