China will stop at nothing to shirk responsibility for unleashing a deadly pandemic upon the world.
As part of their latest propaganda campaign, a senior Chinese diplomat tweeted an article from a Canadian conspiracy theory website that falsely accuses the US of creating COVID-19.
On March 12, the spokesperson and Deputy Director General of China’s Information Department and Foreign Ministry Lijan Zhao shared an article posted on the website Global Research titled “COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.”
The Montreal-based website Global Research was once investigated by NATO for spreading conspiracy theories, misinformation and pro-Russian propaganda.
According to a 2017 report by the Globe and Mail, NATO’s information warfare arm StratCom investigated the website for spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda with the intention of whittling away the credibility of Western democratic institutions.
While NATO did not have proof that Global Research was in any way connected to a foreign government, they concluded that the website did contribute to legitimizing pro-Russia and pro-Bashar Al-Assad messaging following the Syrian chemical weapons attack in 2017.
The website has also published content suggesting that the 9/11 terror attacks were orchestrated by the CIA.
Global Research is published and edited by University of Ottawa Professor Emeritus of Economics Michel Chossudovsky.
The article shared by Lijan dubiously claims that the COVID-19 virus did not originate in Wuhan, China, but escaped a US military bio-lab located in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
“Not only did the virus not originate at the seafood market, it did not originate in Wuhan at all, and it has now been proven that it did not originate in China but was brought to China from another country,” claims the piece authored by Larry Romanoff.
Despite claims in the article, health experts from around the world agree that COVID-19 likely originated in a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan.
“Early on, many of the patients at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China had some link to a large seafood and live animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread,” writes the CDC.
According to his biography, Romanoff, who is a frequent contributor to the website, is a Chinese resident and a “visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University.”
Articles written by Romanoff date back to September 24, 2019 with his first piece on the website defending communist China’s actions during the brutal Tiananmen Square massacre.
“When police or military are attacked in this way, they will surely use force to defend themselves and cannot be faulted for that. If you or I were the military commander on the scene, watching our men being attacked and burned to death, we would have done the same. From everything I know, I can find no fault here,” wrote Romanoff.
More recent articles by Romanoff continuously imply that the US is to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. One article from February 24 linked to a Japanese TV broadcast making such allegations.
True North reached out to both Romanoff and Chossudovsky for comment but did not receive a response.
US President Donald Trump has hit back at the baseless claims tracing the virus back to the US by emphasizing its Chinese origin.
“China was putting out information, which was false, that our military gave this to them. That was false. And rather than having an argument, I said I had to call it where it came from. It did come from China. So, I think it’s a very accurate term,” said Trump.
