Referring to an article in Gendai Business, this piece introduces the corruption case involving Professor Li Ning of China Agricultural University, who illegally disposed of experimental animals and milk. It discusses the possibility that post-experiment animals were sold into markets, and the suspicion within China that something similar may have occurred at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market.

March 30, 2020
Could the same thing have been taking place at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market in Hubei Province, which is said to be the source of the novel coronavirus?
The following is a painstaking article I discovered while searching for English translations of the names of Chinese women connected with this matter.
https://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/70495?page=6
Medical care, health, and food.
China.
Corruption, incidents, and crime.
Novel coronavirus: the mystery of the outbreak held by Wuhan’s “too-beautiful 39-year-old institute director.”
Was there, after all, some kind of “accident”?
“Suspicions” arising from a certain court judgment.
Both Japan and China now seem to be filled entirely with news about the novel coronavirus, but I would like to begin with a story from China which, at first glance, may seem unrelated, yet may in fact be greatly connected.
On the 3rd of last month, at the Intermediate People’s Court, a local court, in Songyuan City, Jilin Province, 2,183 kilometers north of Wuhan, Hubei Province, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus, a judgment was handed down in a corruption case known as “No. 15 of 2015.”
It was a severe judgment: the defendant Li Ning, aged 57, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, fined 3 million yuan, about 47 million yen, and ordered to hand over to the state treasury everything he had obtained as bribes.
Li Ning had been a professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing, the highest academic institution in China’s agricultural sector.
I have a friend who graduated from China Agricultural University, and when I checked with him, he said that Li had been a star professor standing at the forefront of cloning research.
Defendant Li Ning, a leading authority in cloning research.
The written judgment is a long document of twenty pages in total, and from the standpoint of a Japanese person, it contains a series of things that make one exclaim, “Surely not!”
To summarize them briefly, they are as follows.
Defendant.
Li Ning, male, born July 9, 1962, in Xinfeng County, Jiangxi Province, Han Chinese, Ph.D., member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, professor at China Agricultural University, director of the State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology at China Agricultural University, president of Beijing Ji Pu Lin Biotechnology Co., Ltd., resident of Haidian District, Beijing.
He was arrested on June 21, 2014, and has been detained at the Jilin Province Detention Center.
Charges.
From July 2008 to February 2012, during the course of his research projects, defendant Li Ning used scientific research funds to purchase pigs and cattle for experiments.
After the experiments for the research projects were completed, defendant Li Ning illegally disposed of the pigs, cattle, and milk.
In that process, he had 10,179,201.86 yuan, approximately 160 million yen, transferred into his personal bank account.
In addition, he embezzled the remaining research funds, 25,591,919 yuan, approximately 400 million yen.
He also falsely reported personnel expenses amounting to 6,212,248.51 yuan, approximately 98 million yen.
Including these acts, defendant Li Ning, together with his subordinate researcher Zhang Lei, used the authority of his position to embezzle state-owned property amounting to 37,566,488.55 yuan, approximately 590 million yen.
This violates Articles 382 and 383 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, and he should bear criminal responsibility for the crime of corruption.
Moreover, in this joint crime, defendant Li Ning played the leading role and should be punished as the principal offender.
This case was prosecuted on April 10, 2015, and was accepted on the same day by the People’s Court of Songyuan City, Jilin Province.
Public hearings were held in court on August 20 and 21, 2015, and on December 30, 2019, and the trial was concluded.
On the day of this judgment, Presiding Judge Du Yan permitted what could be called an unusual question-and-answer session with the media.
More precisely, in the form of a “question-and-answer session with the media” that had not actually taken place, he released supplementary explanations in order to assert the correctness of the judgment.
This is a method also used by such institutions as the People’s Bank of China.
In that explanation, Presiding Judge Du stated the following about the charges.
“Li Ning’s corruption consisted of three things.
First, he profited by selling animals and milk after experiments.
Second, he embezzled research funds under his own name and under the names of others.
Third, he embezzled personnel expenses under his own name and under the names of others.
Among these, in addition to embezzling research funds under his own name, Li Ning issued as many as 223 false receipts.
Through this, he embezzled 20.92 million yuan, approximately 330 million yen, of scientific research funds under other people’s names.
This accounts for 82 percent of the total.
The procuratorial authorities examined these documentary records, took witness testimony, compared them with the statements of accomplices, and established the evidence.”
This criminal case, in which judgment was handed down on January 3, is now suddenly attracting attention in China.
That is because it revealed the fact that even at China Agricultural University, the highest academic institution in China’s agricultural sector, “pigs, cattle, and milk after experiments were secretly sold to dealers.”
The dealers must have taken them to the market as if nothing were amiss, and in the market they must have been sold together with other pigs, cattle, and milk.
Could the same thing have been taking place at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market in Hubei Province, which is said to be the source of the novel coronavirus?
Such suspicions are flying about on the Chinese internet and social media.