This article, dated April 26, 2020, draws on Keiko Kawasoe’s essay in the monthly magazine WiLL to examine questions surrounding the origin of the Wuhan virus, research by Shi Zhengli and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and CNN’s report that Chinese authorities tightened control over coronavirus-related academic papers. It criticizes Japanese media for lacking the 5W1H and standing far from true journalism.

April 26, 2020
They may justify the research purpose by saying it was “for the development of vaccines,” but it is unnatural to research vaccines for a virus that is not spreading.
The following is from an essay by Keiko Kawasoe, a nonfiction writer, published in the monthly magazine WiLL, which was released the day before yesterday and should be read by every Japanese citizen, under the title “The Spread of the Wuhan Virus: China’s Grave Responsibility.”
Her essay proves how far newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun and television stations such as NHK are from the realm of journalism.
The 5W1H is not only the foundation of journalism.
It is the very form of intelligence itself.
The above-mentioned media, in which this is completely lacking, are not only disqualified as journalism, but are organizations devoid of intelligence.
Her essay is probably the greatest warning to Japan, where media such as those mentioned above dominate the living rooms of the nation.
Emphasis in the body text, excluding headings, is mine.
What is the “inconvenient truth” for the Chinese authorities?
Chapter One: A World Authority Suspects That the Novel Coronavirus Is Artificial
The same kind of lie.
“Is Japan really not discussing whether the novel coronavirus, Covid-19, is natural or artificial?”
These were the words that Dr. Anthony Tu, professor emeritus at Colorado State University, who visited Japan in early March, first asked several times in surprise.
Dr. Tu was born in Taipei in 1930, during the Japanese era, and after graduating from the Faculty of Science at National Taiwan University, he went to the United States.
He engaged in chemical research at Stanford University and Yale University, and became a professor at Colorado State University.
His specialty is toxins, including snake venom.
Because one of the toxin weapons produced by Uzbekistan, a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, was “cobra neurotoxin,” he has served for many years since the 1980s as an adviser to the United States on biological weapons.
He has also cooperated with the U.S. government in creating databases on toxins.
He has published eight volumes of English-language specialized books on natural toxins, which anyone involved in biological and chemical weapons must study for basic knowledge.
He is truly a world authority.
He is also known for his contributions to Japan.
In the series of sarin incidents committed by Aum Shinrikyo, he instructed the Japanese police on “how to detect sarin from soil.”
For that achievement, he received the Order of the Rising Sun in 2009.
Dr. Tu, who knows well that Hankou in Wuhan has long been a mecca of toxin research, continues as follows.
“From the beginning, I have thought that there is a possibility that the virus leaked outside from a research institute studying toxins and biochemistry.
It is true that there are experts who say that ‘artificial origin is impossible,’ but their grounds for rebuttal are all weak, such as, ‘Bacteria and viruses eventually come back to oneself, so no one would use such dangerous things,’ or ‘China is a member of the Biological Weapons Convention, the BWC.’”
Dr. Tu also told the story of the anthrax incident that occurred in the Soviet Union in 1979.
“At the time, the Soviet authorities announced that it was because people had eaten rotten mutton, but the truth revealed by investigations after the collapse of the Soviet Union was that the air conditioning had become clogged, anthrax leaked out from another place, and many people living nearby died.”
In other words, the Chinese authorities had repeatedly claimed from the beginning that the spread of infection of the novel coronavirus began with people who had eaten bats sold at the seafood wholesale market in Wuhan.
Dr. Tu suggested that this may be the same kind of sophistry.
The papers Dr. Tu is watching closely.
Dr. Tu continues as follows.
“After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, anthrax terrorist incidents occurred in the United States.
Biological weapons and chemical weapons target not only humans, but also livestock, animals, grains, and plants, so we do not know who is making them or for what purpose.
However, it is certain that many countries are conducting research.
In the United States, research for defensive purposes is permitted, and intelligence gathering on enemy countries is given the highest priority.”
Then, regarding the research team centered on Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and its papers, he said the following.
“That research team repeatedly conducted studies to make SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, viruses extracted from bats cross the species barrier and infect other species.
In November 2015, Shi Zhengli announced in Nature Medicine that by modifying the SARS virus, her team had succeeded in developing a virus that damages the respiratory organs of mice.
They may justify the research purpose by saying it was ‘for the development of vaccines,’ but it is unnatural to research vaccines for a virus that is not spreading.
Also, as can be seen from this research, bat viruses do not naturally infect humans.”
Dr. Tu is also paying attention to papers of the kind that say, “Was the novel coronavirus created by modifying the SARS virus?”
“The novel coronavirus is close to SARS, but there are clearly four differences in its molecules.
These are not the sort of things that occur naturally.
The research results of Professor Pradhan and others in India are quite interesting.
They say that parts of the spike regions of the HIV virus and the Wuhan virus are highly similar.
The content is that four gene sequences derived from the HIV virus were artificially inserted into the genetic sequence of the SARS virus, making it easier to infect humans, and that this is the novel coronavirus this time.”
CNN exposes the Chinese authorities’ new policy.
Dr. Tu urged me to check the contents of CNN’s April 13 report, “Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research, amid US-China row on virus origin.”
The main points of the CNN report are as follows.
・Under the new policy issued by the Chinese government, all academic papers concerning the novel coronavirus will henceforth be subject to review by government authorities before publication.
A notice stating that they cannot be published without approval first appeared on the website of Fudan University in Shanghai on the morning of Friday, April 10.
There was also an image of the notice in Chinese.
・This directive is said to be based on instructions issued during a March 25 meeting held by the State Council task force on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus.
・A Hong Kong medical expert who cooperated with Chinese researchers and published a clinical analysis of novel coronavirus cases in an international medical journal said, “There was no review at the stage of February.”
・When CNN contacted the address listed in the notice on the Fudan University website and asked about the notice, it was told, “This is an internal document.”
A few hours later, it was removed from the site.
It had also appeared on the website of China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, but was removed.
This CNN report revealed that the Chinese Communist Party is trying, through not only “propaganda” but also “politics,” to thoroughly control and kill “science,” which may be called the common language of the world.
Since late January, Chinese researchers have published papers on novel coronavirus research in influential international medical journals.
Their findings on its origin and the outbreak cast doubt on the Chinese government’s official explanation.
One of them was an English-language report titled “The Possible Origins of the Novel Coronavirus,” posted on February 6 on ResearchGate, a global information-sharing platform for scientists.
Soon after it was published, it was “buried in darkness” by the Chinese authorities.
After learning of the existence of the report from an acquaintance, I found the original text and had Dr. Tu confirm it as well.
Its contents were specific and highly credible.
The lead author, Professor Xiao Botao, specializes in physiology, biophysics, medical biology, biological data science, biochemistry and molecular biology, microbiology, and other fields, and is a professor at the School of Biology and Biological Engineering at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.
Moreover, until 2013 he was affiliated with Boston Children’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School, and until 2017 he held the positions of professor and deputy director at the Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan.
The other person listed in the report was someone affiliated with Tianyou Hospital, attached to Wuhan University of Science and Technology, specializing in scientific investigation.
The report stated such things as the following:
“Bats are never food for citizens and are not bought or sold in the market.”
“At the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, WHCDC, animals were secured for research purposes, and the center specialized in pathogen collection and identification.”
“The WHCDC had obtained 155 bats from Hubei Province and 450 bats from Zhejiang Province within the past two years.”
“The second laboratory is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, located about 12 kilometers from the seafood market.
This institute has reported that Chinese horseshoe bats caused the severe SARS pandemic from 2002 to 2003.”
“The direct speculation is that SARS, coronavirus, or its derivatives may have leaked from a laboratory.”
“In summary, someone was entangled with the evolution of the novel coronavirus.”
Incidentally, there is also talk that Professor Xiao, the author of the report, is missing.
For the Chinese authorities, was this not precisely an “inconvenient truth”?
The proposal for “hospital ships.”
Finally.
When Dr. Tu urgently visited Japan in early March, he proposed in meetings with government and ruling-party officials that Japan “should use hospital ships.”
This proposal came before the Trump administration announced the use of hospital ships.
And Japan, at last, has decided that the government will include approximately 70 million yen in the fiscal 2020 supplementary budget proposal for investigation expenses toward the introduction of “hospital ships.”
It seems that experts will now examine concrete measures, but the budget is far too shabby, and above all, is Japan’s pace not slower than that of a turtle?