Pandemic Coverup Highlights Beijing’s Pattern of Deception: Report

A Chinese guard wears a protective mask as he stands at the entrance to the Forbidden City as it reopened to limited visitors for the May holiday, in Beijing on May 1, 2020. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

China’s failure to contain the CCP virus has exposed the regime’s deceptive nature to the world and demonstrated that it can bring about deadly consequences, according to a report by a medical ethics group released on May 5.

The mishandling of the virus, which first emerged in China’s central city of Wuhan, is consistent with tactics the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has deployed in the past: deny, hide, propagate disinformation, then capitalize on the gains, said the U.S.-based ethics group, Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), calling such actions a “deception protocol.”

This pattern has repeated over the past few decades as the Chinese regime committed human rights violations and the international community watched on.

During this pandemic, “the ramifications of the CCP’s actions, in relation to the virus, are now being witnessed in every corner of the world,” according to the report (pdf).

“History has repeated itself with COVID-19 but [with] far greater and far more serious consequences,” DAFOH’s deputy director Rob Gray said at the report’s virtual release event on Tuesday.

Two Viruses

Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist reprimanded by police for “rumor-mongering” after he posted on social media about the virus was but the latest whistleblower targeted by Beijing’s draconian censorship, the report noted. Li contracted the virus from a patient he was treating and later died.

Similar to the current crisis, Chinese officials withheld information during the early weeks of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2002 and did not warn the public for months. Prominent Chinese military surgeon Jiang Yanyong served 45 days in jail for his attempts to publicize the authorities’ coverup. In the aftermath of the outbreak that spread to dozens of countries, the World Health Organization updated the International Health Regulations to strengthen health risk communication and require countries to notify the United Nations agency of any public health emergencies.

Jiang, a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his outspokenness, has faced continued harassment by authorities over the years. Now 88, he remains under arrest since April 2019, after he wrote to authorities calling for a “reassessment” of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, which the regime crushed with tanks and guns.

“It appears that speaking up against the CCP’s narrative during the initial stages of an epidemic or pandemic result[s] in a life sentence in one form or another,” the report stated.

Medical Abuses

Similar systematic denial and deception have recurred in China’s medical field over the past two decades, and could inflict further damage should it continue unabated, according to the report.

Since 2006, reports have surfaced alleging that the Chinese regime was harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience to conduct for-profit transplant surgery.

Last June, an independent London-based tribunal concluded, after reviewing written evidence and witness testimonies, that such state-sanctioned practices have taken place for years “on a significant scale”—an action “indicative” of genocide.

The tribunal determined that the main source of organs comes from imprisoned practitioners of the spiritual practice Falun Gong, who have come under severe nationwide persecution since 1999.

Adnan Sharif, DAFOH’s secretary, also highlighted the recent news of two elderly patients infected with the virus in China who received lung transplants.

“What the CCP really wanted to show was the scientific brilliance of being the first country to do lung transplantation in this setting, but what it really does [is] it raises more questions on the organ sources,” he said at the Tuesday event, drawing attention to the suspiciously short wait times—three days—to find matching organs for the elderly patients.

Since 2015, the Chinese regime has maintained that all organ transplants are performed with organs collected via a voluntary donation system. But a 2019 BMC Medical Ethics study found that the Chinese regime likely falsified its organ donation data using a quadratic function. It was just another example of the regime’s data maneuvering, Shariff said.

Two children wearing face masks rest during their visit to the Great Wall of China in Beijing on April 18, 2020. Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images

Warning Against Silence

DAFOH said that silence in the face of such human rights tragedies—in itself a form of denial—has its consequences: the mass imprisonment of Uyghurs in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang bears the hallmarks of the persecution of Falun Gong, China’s pervasive surveillance technology is expanding overseas, and false data published during the current outbreak, the report noted.

Statistical modeling, eyewitness accounts, and leaked documents obtained by The Epoch Times have shown that Chinese authorities are underreporting virus infections and deaths.

Failing to contain the virus within its borders, the Chinese regime then attempted to recast itself as the global health leader, exporting substandard medical supplies to countries while waging an aggressive disinformation campaign on social media and Chinese state media to deflect blame.

“The nature, intent, and actions of the CCP should no longer be allowed to continue unabated,” the report stated. “The CCP is the biggest and most serious virus of all,” it said, quoting a speech from Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese human rights lawyer who fled to the United States in 2012 amid authorities’ surveillance.