The Canadian Press Published Tuesday, April 7, 2020 5:31PM EDT
BlackBerry’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ont. is shown on Wednesday June 22 , 2016. Blackberry Ltd. has added Snap Inc. to the list of companies it’s taking to court in California for alleged patent infringement. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eduardo Lima
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TORONTO — BlackBerry Ltd. says it has uncovered how China-backed hackers have been able to extract data from many of the world’s servers for a decade without being noticed.
BlackBerry executive Eric Cornelius says the hackers have been skilful in disguising some of their software tools to appear like advertising software that poses a low-level security risk.
Cornelius says the tactics give the hackers the ability to extract information from huge amounts of valuable data on web servers using the Linux operating system.
He says the hacker tools aren’t new but were mostly overlooked because most cybersecurity efforts are focused on mass market operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Google Android.
BlackBerry says in a 44-page report that five separate groups with links to the Chinese government have been targeting Linux systems for a decade.
The federal government’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security says it works with partners to monitor and deal with potential threats but it doesn’t comment on specific incidents.
I don’t say this often, but I think the Trudeau government deserves some praise for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic this week. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, in particular, has been impressive in setting the record straight and providing a calm and intelligent line of reasoning behind each government decision.
There are, however, some glaring exceptions to this statement. I’m talking about Health Minister Patty Hajdu and her despicable parroting of Chinese Communist Party propaganda during Thursday afternoon’s media briefing.
CTV’s Ian Brown asked the COVID-19 panel to respond to a Bloomberg news story about a classified U.S. intelligence report on China hiding the extent of the coronavirus outbreak by under-reporting the number of cases and deaths.
“China’s numbers are fake,” the report concludes.
“There’s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way,” Hajdu said sternly.
This was a remarkable moment. A top member of Trudeau’s inner circle was ardently defending a communist regime known for grave human rights abuses and lying on the world stage, while tacitly accusing our top ally and most important international partner of spreading false information.
To add insult to injury, when Brown tried to push back with facts, Hajdu lashed out at him, accusing the reporter of “feeding into conspiracy theories.”
Not only was this an autocratic response to a very reasonable question — making the minister look more like a Chinese official than an elected civil servant in a liberal democracy — but Hajdu’s comments are also highly ignorant and in contradiction to known facts.
There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.
In mid-February, China was widely criticized for not including individuals who tested positive for coronavirus but were not showing symptoms in official tallies. Last week, the Chinese government finally changed course to include asymptomatic cases — marking the eighth different definition of what constitutes a coronavirus infection in China’s official reporting since the outbreak began in late 2019.
On March 11, a Southampton University study found that had China acted just one, two or three weeks sooner, “cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86% and 95% respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”
Instead, China spent the early days arresting doctors and journalists who spoke out about the deadly virus, while adamantly denying human to human transmission.
While there is no free press in China, and the communist regime expelled American journalists on March 17, there have been some independent reports calling China’s numbers into suspicion.
On March 27, a Radio Free Asia report contested the official death toll in Wuhan — a large metropolitan area the size of New York City and ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
While China claims the death toll in Wuhan is around 2,500, Radio Free Asia reports that incinerators at the city’s seven funeral homes have been “working around the clock.” They report that families have been given government stipends to cover the cost of cremation in exchange for their silence — “hush money” to keep the truth from the world.
Radio Free Asia estimates the real death toll in Wuhan to be somewhere between 42,000 and 46,800.
China’s evolving narrative and criminal cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak is no doubt to blame for the world’s lack of preparation for this deadly pandemic.
When the world finally navigates through this public health pandemic and resulting economic crisis, the global community must come together to hold China to account for its reprehensible actions that led to untold death and destruction.
China deserves to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and ex-communicated from the global community. We should similarly judge minister Hajdu for her knee-jerk defence of the truly indefensible.
We’re asking readers, like you, to make a contribution in support of True North’s fact-based, independent journalism.
Unlike the mainstream media, True North isn’t getting a government bailout. Instead, we depend on the generosity of Canadians like you.
How can a media outlet be trusted to remain neutral and fair if they’re beneficiaries of a government handout? We don’t think they can.
This is why independent media in Canada is more important than ever. If you’re able, please make a tax-deductible donation to True North today. Thank you so much.
I don’t say this often, but I think the Trudeau government deserves some praise for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic this week. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, in particular, has been impressive in setting the record straight and providing a calm and intelligent line of reasoning behind each government decision.
There are, however, some glaring exceptions to this statement. I’m talking about Health Minister Patty Hajdu and her despicable parroting of Chinese Communist Party propaganda during Thursday afternoon’s media briefing.
CTV’s Ian Brown asked the COVID-19 panel to respond to a Bloomberg news story about a classified U.S. intelligence report on China hiding the extent of the coronavirus outbreak by under-reporting the number of cases and deaths.
“China’s numbers are fake,” the report concludes.
“There’s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way,” Hajdu said sternly.
This was a remarkable moment. A top member of Trudeau’s inner circle was ardently defending a communist regime known for grave human rights abuses and lying on the world stage, while tacitly accusing our top ally and most important international partner of spreading false information.
To add insult to injury, when Brown tried to push back with facts, Hajdu lashed out at him, accusing the reporter of “feeding into conspiracy theories.”
Not only was this an autocratic response to a very reasonable question — making the minister look more like a Chinese official than an elected civil servant in a liberal democracy — but Hajdu’s comments are also highly ignorant and in contradiction to known facts.
There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.
In mid-February, China was widely criticized for not including individuals who tested positive for coronavirus but were not showing symptoms in official tallies. Last week, the Chinese government finally changed course to include asymptomatic cases — marking the eighth different definition of what constitutes a coronavirus infection in China’s official reporting since the outbreak began in late 2019.
On March 11, a Southampton University study found that had China acted just one, two or three weeks sooner, “cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86% and 95% respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”
Instead, China spent the early days arresting doctors and journalists who spoke out about the deadly virus, while adamantly denying human to human transmission.
While there is no free press in China, and the communist regime expelled American journalists on March 17, there have been some independent reports calling China’s numbers into suspicion.
On March 27, a Radio Free Asia report contested the official death toll in Wuhan — a large metropolitan area the size of New York City and ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
While China claims the death toll in Wuhan is around 2,500, Radio Free Asia reports that incinerators at the city’s seven funeral homes have been “working around the clock.” They report that families have been given government stipends to cover the cost of cremation in exchange for their silence — “hush money” to keep the truth from the world.
Radio Free Asia estimates the real death toll in Wuhan to be somewhere between 42,000 and 46,800.
China’s evolving narrative and criminal cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak is no doubt to blame for the world’s lack of preparation for this deadly pandemic.
When the world finally navigates through this public health pandemic and resulting economic crisis, the global community must come together to hold China to account for its reprehensible actions that led to untold death and destruction.
China deserves to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and ex-communicated from the global community. We should similarly judge minister Hajdu for her knee-jerk defence of the truly indefensible.
We’re asking readers, like you, to make a contribution in support of True North’s fact-based, independent journalism.
Unlike the mainstream media, True North isn’t getting a government bailout. Instead, we depend on the generosity of Canadians like you.
How can a media outlet be trusted to remain neutral and fair if they’re beneficiaries of a government handout? We don’t think they can.
This is why independent media in Canada is more important than ever. If you’re able, please make a tax-deductible donation to True North today. Thank you so much.
$1000.00 Per American Per Year—LEGAL Immigration NET Costs to U.S. Taxpayers & CCN’s SOLUTION
ACTION ALERT!
Please send the following Letter to Your Congressional Representatives — Ask your Friends to do the Same
Dear Congressperson,
How would you like to tell your constituents that there was an extra $1,000 each year average for them to spend because their taxes had been lowered? That would be a Tax Savings of $758,000,000 ($758 MILLION!) average for each Congressional District each year.
According to a study by noted Economist, John Williams, which can be viewed at Carrying Capacity Network [1] which sponsored the Study, U.S. Taxpayers pay out a NET $330 BILLION ANNUALLY on LEGAL Immigration. That is, MASS LEGAL Immigration costs U.S. tax-payers $330 BILLION per YEAR AFTER SUBTRACTING ALL TAXES IMMIGRANTS PAY. [And this $330 Billion does NOT include the additional NET amount of Taxes State and Local Taxpayers pay to finance this LEGAL Immigration.]
Thus the 330 Million Americans pay, on Average, Annual Federal Tax of $1000.00 each to fund the $330 BILLION Annual NET Cost of Legal Immigration. [Approximately 62% of those Costs fund Immigrant Health Care, Health Insurance, and Welfare.]
Indeed, the Federal Deficit Faces a $3.3 Trillion Additional NET Hit in Next Decade, Without a Reduction in the 1.5 Million Annual LEGAL Immigrant Inflow.
Further, the study shows that LEGAL immigrants have displaced more than 5.9 million native-born workers from their jobs since the onset of the Great Recession. That is an average of 13,600 workers or voters per congressional district in the last 10 years, plus their families*.
This Annual Tax-Payer Expense Of $330 Billion divided by the 435 Congressional Districts equals, on average, $758 million that could eventually be spent within each of these districts annually. That’s an average of $1000.00 per person in each District** that the 330 Million Americans pay to support LEGAL Immigrants. How many of your constituents do you believe know (or would even believe) that this situation has evolved over recent decades? You may not have been in office when this began, but you are there now.
—WHAT CAN BE DONE: Reduce the 1.5 million plus LEGAL immigrant flow into the U.S. (for all Categories of immigrants including refugees) to the same number of U.S. citizens who migrate out of the U.S. annually—appx.150,000—by imposing an all-categories-included CAP. And issue these LEGAL immigrants conditional green cards with the conditions of English Language Proficiency, no Felonies or Misdemeanors, and no applications for entitlements for 10 years. They must demonstrate their desire and ability to become good U.S. citizens.
Now for the really tough question. How are you going to explain to your constituents what you are going to do about this Costly MASS LEGAL Immigration?
Answer: Tell them you are going to sponsor an all-categories-included Zero-Net MORATORIUM Bill.
Couldn’t these U.S. Taxpayer dollars be better spent? How much is The Wall going to cost? How much is the infrastructure program supposed to cost? And what about the Oppressive National Debt?
To: Immigration Reduction Supporters: please send this letter to your Representatives and your friends, and follow up with visits to District Offices and phone calls including phone calls to your Representatives via the Congressional Switchboard:202-224-3121 or 800-828-0498.
And, FOR LETTERS/CALLS/VISITS TO U.S. SENATORS—Multiply the number of Congressional Districts in your State by $758 MILLION so you can tell your Senators how much LEGAL Immigration is costing Federal Taxpayers in your State.
And…Please help CCN Distribute and publicize this Study far and wide by making a secure Credit Card tax deductible Donation NOW at our website, Carrying Capacity Network, or by sending a check to:
Carrying Capacity Network, Inc. P O Box 457 San Francisco, CA 94104-0457
NOW. Congress is working on Immigration legislation NOW.
Requesting your Representatives sponsor a Zero-Net Moratorium bill and Donating to CCN maximizes our Political Leverage for lower numbers far more than pushing the half-measures advocated by the Mass Immigration Management Groups. Indeed, their pushing Bills which would only cut Mass Immigration by about half is Counterproductive because it sends the Message that Mass Immigration is OK if we just reduce it a bit. _________ It is critically IMPORTANT TO ACT NOW, because the legislation now being considered will likely set Immigration Policy for Years!
*The protection of jobs held by your constituents would begin substantially from day one of a Moratorium Implementation.
**The massive savings will not occur all at once because of the “Cost Legacy” U.S. Taxpayers have ALREADY unknowingly been committed to, to pay costs resulting from LEGAL Immigrants already in the U.S.
MEDIA NOTE: Media wishing to conduct interviews or ask questions should email their contact info to: ccn-coststudy@att.net
Xiangguo Qiu, her biologist husband and her students have not returned to work at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, after being escorted out in July. RCMP are still investigating what was described by Public Health Agency of Canada as a possible ‘policy breach.’ (CBC)
This story was published on Oct. 3, 2019.
A Canadian government scientist at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg made at least five trips to China in 2017-18, including one to train scientists and technicians at China’s newly certified Level 4 lab, which does research with the most deadly pathogens, according to travel documents obtained by CBC News.
Xiangguo Qiu — who was escorted out of the Winnipeg lab in July amid an RCMP investigation into what’s being described by Public Health Agency of Canada as a possible “policy breach” — was invited to go to the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences twice a year for two years, for up to two weeks each time.
“This will be third-party funded, and therefore no cost to [the Public Health Agency of Canada],” say the documents, obtained through access to information requests. The identity of the third-party was redacted.
During a Sept. 19-30, 2017, trip, she also met with collaborators in Beijing, the documents say, but their names have also been blacked out.
Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng and her students from China were removed on July 5 from Canada’s only Level 4 lab — one equipped to work with the most serious and deadly human and animal diseases, such as Ebola. Security access for the couple and the Chinese students was revoked, sources who work at the lab previously told CBC News.
People working inside the lab told CBC News this week they have heard the couple may return to work soon.
Several of them, who asked not to be identified for fears of retribution, say there have always been questions about Qiu’s trips to China — and what information and technology she was sharing with researchers there.
“It’s not right that she’s a Canadian government employee providing details of top-secret work and know-how to set up a high-containment lab for a foreign nation,” one employee said.
The staff member claims RCMP officers have not yet interviewed key people at the lab, because senior management has not made them accessible to police or allowed staff to contact them with relevant information.
Qiu accepts an award from Gov. Gen. Julie Payette, left, at a ceremony at Rideau Hall in 2018, for being part of the team at the National Microbiology Lab that created the Ebola drug ZMapp. (CBC)
A spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which runs the lab, referred questions to the RCMP.
“We encourage anyone who has information and wishes to speak with the RCMP on this matter to attend RCMP HQ in Winnipeg at 1091 Portage Avenue,” RCMP said in an emailed statement.
“In order to maintain the integrity of the investigative process, we have no further comment at this time.”
A spokesperson confirms the police investigation is ongoing. Both agencies have said repeatedly there is no threat to public safety.
Researchers must balance caution, collaboration
Meanwhile, there has been no change in Qiu and Cheng’s status at the University of Manitoba, which had severed ties with both of them and reassigned her students in July.
She is a medical doctor from Tianjin, China, who came to Canada for graduate studies in 1996. She is still affiliated with the university there and has brought in many students over the years to help with her work.
During her trips, Qiu also visited the Chinese Academy of Science, Tsinghua University, the Chinese Medical Academy of Science and Bejing Institute of Biotechnology.
She spoke at several conferences, including some organized by the World Health Organization, the Chinese Society of Virology and International Symposium on Emerging Viral Disease.
Jia Wang, deputy director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, is not concerned with Xiangguo Qiu’s trips to China, saying collaboration is common in international research. (China Institute)
Collaboration and information-sharing is common and expected in academia, says Jia Wang, deputy director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
“In an increasingly globalized world, in an increasingly globalized field of research, we do see more exchanges and more visits incoming and outgoing,” she said.
But researchers working with international partners also “need to understand the security parameters and the requirements to follow the procedures, and to safeguard intellectual property and also safeguard their research,” she said.
There’s a balance they need to strike between being cautious and open-minded to collaboration, though, Wang said.
“In the end, we are hoping that this research exchange will ultimately benefit Canada and benefit our people here.”
Qiu and Cheng have not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Coronavirus Excuse for Government Power Grab and Control & How Government Sinophiles & Anti-racists Failed to Protect Us from the Wuhan Flu – Paul Fromm
After a 24 year legal battle, German immigrant and highly successful businessman Helmut Oberlander faces deportation from Canada. He has been stripped of his Canadian citizenship and faces removal. His case, with numerous appeals, has wended its way through the courts for almost a quarter of a century, at obscene costs to the Canadian taxpayer, to say nothing of the costs to Mr. Oberlander.
A complete review of this legal journey would turn this letter into a book. However, here is a brief summary. Helmut Oberlander was a 17-year old lad living in the Ukraine when German forces invaded. He was Volksdeutche, that is, part of a German minority who had settled there in the 18th century. Young Helmut spoke Russian, Ukrainian and German and, thus, was useful to the German army as a translator. He was seconded to a SD Einheit (Security Unit) of the German Army.
After the war, he went to Germany and trained as a bricklayer and construction engineer. In 1954, he emigrated to Canada and worked for the next few years in the construction trade. In 1958, he formed his own construction company Oberlander Construction and was instrumental in the building explosion in the Kitchener-Waterloo region over the next four decades. Mr. Oberlander was an exemplary and contributing citizen, paying handsome taxes and employing many people.
His legal torment began in 1994, when, in response to persistent Jewish lobbying to refight World War II, the government of the day sought to strip Mr. Oberlander of his citizenship on the basis that he must have lied to obtain entry to Canada as membership in units like the SD Einheit made him ineligible as they were implicated in killing some civilians. However, it was not as simple. It quickly became clear that Mr. Oberlander had committed no war crimes. He was a youthful translator. Potential immigrants were supposed to be asked about their wartime service. So, it is assumed that Mr. Oberlander lied. However, numerous people who immigrated at the time recall that, shortly after the war, RCMP interrogators no longer asked about wartime service but only about membership in the communist party. Could Mr. Oberlander be held responsible for not volunteering information he was not asked for? There is no longer any paper record. The notes from the interviews of the time have long since been destroyed. Indeed, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on Mr. Oberlander’s part. In contrast, there are the 61 years of Mr. Oberlander’s entrepreneurship and contribution to Canada — in other words, evidence of a solid, exemplary, contributing citizen!
Why the singleminded obsession with the deportation of this 96 year old man? It’s hard not to draw a parallel with the treatment of ex-terrorist Omar Khadr. Like Mr. Oberlander his wartime actions started when he was what we would now call a “young offender”. But Mr. Oberlander committed no crime; while Mr. Khadr killed an American soldier and partially blinded another. Yet, Canada has bent over backwards for Mr. Khadr, citing his youthful status at the time, and rewarding him with what was to be a secret $10.5-million settlement. Mr. Khadr had contributed nothing to Canada. In contrast, Mr. Oberlander who never committed a crime has made an outstanding contribution to Canada as a model immigrant.
I call upon you to in the interests of fairness and humanity to a 96-year old man to end this persecution and let Mr. Oberlander live out his remaining years with his family in Canada. Stop the German bashing!
The Interior Health Authority says it is investigating an outbreak of COVID-19 involving a group of temporary foreign workers in West Kelowna.On Tuesday, Interior Health said the investigation at the agricultural business followed confirmation of COVID-19 cases among the group of workers.
It added that the workers live in on-site housing at Bylands Nurseries Ltd., and that 75 workers are involved — 63 migrant workers and 12 local workers — who are all self-isolating.
Interior Health said there were 14 positive tests for COVID-19, and that additional results are pending.
Interior Health said a medical health officer placed an order on Bylands Nurseries Ltd., on March 27, and that the workers are to remain in quarantine on the property until the medical health officer “provides alternate direction.”
“The [medical health officer] is confident that the risk of exposure to the general public is low,” Interior Health said in a press release.
“None of the workers were in roles that interact with customers and members of this group had very minimal contact in the community.”
Interior Health said the business is closed to customers, and that the workers live in accommodations that provide space for individuals to safely self-isolate.
“Bylands Nurseries Ltd has been fully cooperative with IH through this process,” said Interior Health, adding the cases may be linked to a group of workers who arrived in Kelowna from outside of Canada on March 12.
Interior Health added that under orders from the medical health officer, Bylands Nurseries and Garden Centre has taken measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, including enhanced cleaning of all nursery, housing, sanitary and other facilities accessed by employees, along with denying visitors access to the site.
Interior Health added that the order only applies to Bylands Nurseries Ltd., and not the Bylands Garden Centre, which is a separate business. However, it said the owner of the garden centre has also elected to voluntarily close.
Asked by Global News what should be done to prevent outbreaks among temporary farm workers, Henry said this was an area of deep concern.
“We’ve had these discussions at the national level,” said Henry. “As you know, this is a national program. B.C. is one of the provinces that benefits from the temporary foreign worker program on an ongoing basis. And it’s a very critical part of supporting a number of different industries — farm industry, agricultural industries — across the province.
“But there are other provinces who have the same concerns. And many of the people come in from countries in South America or Latin America into B.C. and other provinces, so we have been talking about it nationally.”
Coronavirus outbreak: Freeland reiterates message of ‘critical week’ in COVID-19 fight
Coronavirus outbreak: Freeland reiterates message of ‘critical week’ in COVID-19 fight
Henry continued, saying “certainly some people have come in several months ago and they are past the risk stage. And it’s becoming more challenging for foreign workers to get in because many of the flights from places that we would normally accept foreign farm workers are not able to leave at the moment.
“But we are in ongoing discussions with our counterparts across the country and with the federal government about the need for having effective quarantine for individuals who are coming in outside it from outside the country. And in my opinion, that needs to be in a facility that is able to effectively support and care for these people.”
Henry said the affected group has very good accommodations, where they’re able to isolate effectively, “but we know that’s not the case in all places where temporary farmworkers are housed, so that is very much a concern that we’re bringing up with our federal counterparts.”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday highlighted a report from the Daily Mail revealing how Chinese wet markets are still selling bats, cats and dogs for people to eat.
Chinese wet markets, where all sorts of unusual animals — from bats to cats to scorpions — are sold to consumers as food, have long been considered a breeding ground for exotic viruses. Despite the fact that such markets were consideredground zero for the novel coronavirus outbreak, reports emerged over the weekend that wet markets have been reopened in major cities across China.
“Well, we still don’t know where the coronavirus came from originally in Wuhan, and anyone who tells you we are certain of that is lying to you,” Carlson said. “But many people believe it could have originated in the wet market in Wuhan. That’s a place where consumers buy the meat of wild animals to eat including bats. Wild animal wet markets have long been recognized as a major pandemic threat. As coronavirus spread, China announced it would crack down on them, obviously, but it looks like the crackdown didn’t last long. According to Daily Mail, across China, wet markets are reopening and selling the same animals that they did before.”
The Fox News host listed two major cities, one where “dogs and cats are both for sale as food” and another with “a stand selling traditional Chinese medicines advertises things like lizards, scorpions, and, yes, bats.”
Jeff Nyquist joins The Alex Jones Show to expose the biological war started by China launched against the West, and what else is expected in the future.
Terrified dogs and cats crammed into rusty cages. Bats and scorpions offered for sale as traditional medicine. Rabbits and ducks slaughtered and skinned side by side on a stone floor covered with blood, filth, and animal remains.
Those were the deeply troubling scenes yesterday as China celebrated its ‘victory’ over the coronavirus by reopening squalid meat markets of the type that started the pandemic three months ago, with no apparent attempt to raise hygiene standards to prevent a future outbreak.
As the pandemic that began in Wuhan forced countries worldwide to go into lockdown, a Mail on Sunday correspondent yesterday watched as thousands of customers flocked to a sprawling indoor market in Guilin, south-west China.
Here cages of different species were piled on top of each other. In another meat market in Dongguan, southern China, another correspondent photographed a medicine seller returning to business on Thursday with a billboard advertising bats – thought to be the cause of the initial Wuhan outbreak – along with scorpions and other creatures.
[…] The market in Guilin was packed with shoppers yesterday, with fresh dog and cat meat on offer, a traditional ‘warming’ winter dish.
Many of these disgusting practices have come to America.
“New York City has over 80 wet markets (animal markets) that sell live animals to the public and slaughter them on site,” the animal rights group Their Turn reported on Monday. “Like the wet market in China where COVID-19 jumped from animal to human, NYC’s wet markets are a petri dish for infectious diseases.”
When will the Chinese government be held accountable for the spread of coronavirus?
Marcus Kolga: Canada will have to work with our allies to assess the Chinese government’s responsibility when it comes to the spread of coronavirus and to ensure that they are held to account where appropriate
By Marcus Kolga
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits patients who are being treated and sends regards to medical workers who have been fighting the epidemic on the front line day and night, encouraging them to firm up confidence in defeating the epidemic, by video calls at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province, on Mar. 10, 2020. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via ZUMA Wire/CP)
On Sunday night, the two remaining Democratic Presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, entered a sparse CNN studio for a one-on-one debate, in which the venue, context, and substances were all unsurprisingly hijacked by the coronavirus pandemic. Among the top issues were how millions of Americans would endure economic stresses caused by the outbreak and what the United States government should do to overcome it, especially with the projected costs running into the trillions of dollars.
One of the debate’s most interesting moments came when CNN reporter Dana Bash asked the two candidates: “What consequences should China face for its role in this global crisis?”
Responsibility is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party government has been avoiding since the initial outbreak in Wuhan. Most notably, Dr. Li Wenliang raised concerns about the virus in December and was in turn detained by Chinese authorities and forced to sign a confession of making “false comments” and disturbing “the social order.” The virus would eventually take his life in February.
While Bernie Sanders might be forgiven for naively blurting out that “now is the time to be working with China,” the Chinese government has offered little evidence to suggest that closer cooperation would lead to a solution. Conversely, Beijing’s mishandling and negligence has directly enabled the spread of this pandemic.
China’s primary motivation throughout has been to avoid any responsibility or accountability by deflecting blame and suppressing criticism since day one. So effective has the Chinese campaign been that even foreign governments (including here in Canada) have remained largely silent about China’s role. The instinct of any totalitarian state like China is to cover up anything that might require them to take responsibility.
During the initial coronavirus outbreak, authorities in Wuhan stated that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.” Yet, as first noted in a January study in The Lancet, more than a third of patients had no connections to the Wuhan food market, and people started to become ill weeks before the government would admit.
The first case of the virus likely occurred in mid-November, 2019. While identifying a novel virus of course takes time, Taiwan identified the outbreak and banned flights from Hubei before the end of 2019. By comparison, before China finally acknowledged the gravity of the situation in late January, some five million people left Hubei, allowing the disease to spread throughout China and the world.
To put a finer point on this: had China acted when Taiwan took action (when it was already apparent that a crisis was upon Wuhan), the spread of the virus could have been reduced by some 95 per cent. While it is also true that many Western countries are failing in tragic fashion, thousands of lives, in China and around the world, would have been saved had China put aside its politics and acted swiftly.
Chinese authorities had this information and data but refused to release it in a timely manner, instead preferring an ever-changing narrative about the outbreak that made medical assessments on the coronavirus and its impact very difficult. Crucial weeks were lost that could have helped to contain the country-wide and later global spread of this virus.
Most recently, Chinese government propagandists have promoted a bizarre story about the outbreak in Wuhan being caused by the United States Army. This latest conspiracy, reported by Eto Buziashvili of the Atlantic Council, is seemingly inspired by the KGB’s Operation Infektion from the 1980s, which involved the KGB planting a story in a pro-Kremlin newspaper in India where it was claimed that HIV/AIDS was developed in a CIA laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Russian disinformation campaign eventually metastasized within the U.S. media environment, eventually reaching mainstream U.S. national news in 1983.
Buziashvili reports that stories about the U.S. army introducing coronavirus in Wuhan were planted on pro-Kremlin platforms in January, and have since spread to fringe western pro-totalitarian conspiracy theory platforms, including one based in Montreal. Those stories have since been amplified by Chinese government officials, including Zhao Lijian (the deputy director of Foreign Ministry Information Department) who posted it on Twitter, and further promoted by the Chinese Communist Party controlled social media platform, WeChat.
Such aggressive Chinese government disinformation about the coronavirus is being deliberately promoted to draw attention away from Beijing’s own responsibility for the global pandemic.
While Western governments must maintain their focus on addressing the immediate outbreak, we cannot allow the Chinese government to confuse and reframe our understanding of this pandemic and to manipulate the eventual reckoning that must occur once the threat ebbs.
The cost to overcome this pandemic crisis will be steep, regardless of the physical toll it imposes on our nation. In the coming months, Canada will have to work with our allies to assess the Chinese government’s responsibility and ensure that they are held to account where appropriate. This should include compensation for economic losses by Canadian workers, businesses and our government, and economic sanctions against any Chinese officials deemed negligent in failing to stop the outbreak in China.
Canadians, media and our government must continue repeating Dana Bash’s question, “what consequences should China face for its role in this global crisis?”
BlackBerry’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ont. is shown on Wednesday June 22 , 2016. Blackberry Ltd. has added Snap Inc. to the list of companies it’s taking to court in California for alleged patent infringement. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eduardo Lima
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I don’t say this often, but I think the Trudeau government deserves some praise for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic this week. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, in particular, has been impressive in setting the record straight and providing a calm and intelligent line of reasoning behind each government decision.
There are, however, some glaring exceptions to this statement. I’m talking about Health Minister Patty Hajdu and her despicable parroting of Chinese Communist Party propaganda during Thursday afternoon’s media briefing.
CTV’s Ian Brown asked the COVID-19 panel to respond to a Bloomberg news story about a classified U.S. intelligence report on China hiding the extent of the coronavirus outbreak by under-reporting the number of cases and deaths.
“China’s numbers are fake,” the report concludes.
“There’s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified in any way,” Hajdu said sternly.
This was a remarkable moment. A top member of Trudeau’s inner circle was ardently defending a communist regime known for grave human rights abuses and lying on the world stage, while tacitly accusing our top ally and most important international partner of spreading false information.
To add insult to injury, when Brown tried to push back with facts, Hajdu lashed out at him, accusing the reporter of “feeding into conspiracy theories.”
Not only was this an autocratic response to a very reasonable question — making the minister look more like a Chinese official than an elected civil servant in a liberal democracy — but Hajdu’s comments are also highly ignorant and in contradiction to known facts.
There have been plenty of indications that the data coming out of China is false, starting with the fact that China has admitted so much.
In mid-February, China was widely criticized for not including individuals who tested positive for coronavirus but were not showing symptoms in official tallies. Last week, the Chinese government finally changed course to include asymptomatic cases — marking the eighth different definition of what constitutes a coronavirus infection in China’s official reporting since the outbreak began in late 2019.
On March 11, a Southampton University study found that had China acted just one, two or three weeks sooner, “cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86% and 95% respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”
Instead, China spent the early days arresting doctors and journalists who spoke out about the deadly virus, while adamantly denying human to human transmission.
While there is no free press in China, and the communist regime expelled American journalists on March 17, there have been some independent reports calling China’s numbers into suspicion.
On March 27, a Radio Free Asia report contested the official death toll in Wuhan — a large metropolitan area the size of New York City and ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
While China claims the death toll in Wuhan is around 2,500, Radio Free Asia reports that incinerators at the city’s seven funeral homes have been “working around the clock.” They report that families have been given government stipends to cover the cost of cremation in exchange for their silence — “hush money” to keep the truth from the world.
Radio Free Asia estimates the real death toll in Wuhan to be somewhere between 42,000 and 46,800.
China’s evolving narrative and criminal cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak is no doubt to blame for the world’s lack of preparation for this deadly pandemic.
When the world finally navigates through this public health pandemic and resulting economic crisis, the global community must come together to hold China to account for its reprehensible actions that led to untold death and destruction.
China deserves to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and ex-communicated from the global community. We should similarly judge minister Hajdu for her knee-jerk defence of the truly indefensible.
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