Analysis

'Buildup for War': US Spins COVID Lab Leak Narrative to 'Pin Blame on China'

Ostensibly "bombshell" new leaks suggesting the coronavirus likely originated from a lab incident in China's Wuhan stem from a need to pin the US and global financial mess related to the pandemic on China, which is deemed a rising threat in the Washington establishment, international relations expert Emanuel Pastreich told Sputnik.
Sputnik
The US Energy Department and the FBI have alleged that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely spread "via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory," according to a Wall Street Journal report co-authored by Michael R. Gordon. The report cited a classified intelligence paper provided to the White House and American lawmakers.
However, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on February 26 that there remained "a variety of views" in the US intelligence community about whether the virus emerged naturally, jumping from an infected animal to a human, or escaped from a lab. Sullivan stated that he "can’t confirm or deny" The Wall Street Journal report on the matter.
The timing of the newly-resuscitated allegations has raised numerous questions.

"There are several issues at play here. The first is that the entire COVID-19 project and the medical and general policy enacted in the United States and around the world has increasingly been subject to question. A lot of the policies are now being criticized through all sorts of legal actions being taken. There's a need to try and pin all this on somebody. And China, the 'rising threat' in Washington establishment chatter, is a nice place to pin it on," said Pastreich, president of the Asia Institute think tank, which he founded in 2007.

He added:

"I think there's clearly a split within the establishment, the military defense establishment, as to how to deal with this COVID-19 crisis.  Those looking for a solution ranges from those who want to pin it on the Chinese Communist Party, or who prop up the experts who say we need even more vaccines. And there are other people who are saying on the inside that this story is just not going to hold, that it has come time to clean house."

World
FBI Assesses Origins of COVID-19 'Most Likely' From Potential Leak in Wuhan Lab - Director
US-China relations have been gripped by weeks of heightened tensions of late, amid the shootdown of an alleged Chinese spy balloon over the United States by the Biden administration, with Beijing insisting the flying craft was part of a civilian weather research initiative. This was followed by bellicose warnings that the US "would respond" if it determined China had in fact provided any form of lethal arms to aid Russia in its operation in Ukraine. Such claims have been dismissed by Beijing, which underscored that, "China has been actively promoting peace talks and the political settlement of the crisis.”

"This move is similar to the buildup for war, the attack on Iraq. They want create a false narrative. They express it in every possible media format. Perhaps in the back of the minds of those people deep in theDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the [Pentagon] and at Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, they're probably thinking they'll use this as the lead-up for a major confrontation with China, which will both will kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, you'll be able to pin all this stuff which originated with American-flavored multinational corporations, private equity, and multinational banks on China. The second is to use it as a way to create a new Cold War or even some sort of actual military conflict with China, which will allow them to stimulate the economy and to save the a**es of all these people who are potentially tearing the United States apart, by shifting to a military economy," Emanuel Pastreich told Sputnik.

Truth Too Big to Hide: How Washington Fails to Sweep Ukraine's Biolab Revelation Under Rug
Last spring, amid information obtained in the course of Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine, Russia's Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense (RCB) Troops first began shedding light on the extent of the US bioweapons program carried out in cahoots with the Kiev regime. The Chinese government has also repeatedly raised concerns with regard to Washington's secretive biolabs scattered around the world.

"There's been a lot of discussion out there, the information is not classified, about DARPA and other private corporations developing both viruses and vaccines, as well as working together, in a corrupt manner, with the World Health Organization and with multinational drug companies. So clearly there is an incentive to try and pin all of this this mess, this transnational global finance mess spilling over from the pandemic, to pin it all on China, and specifically on the Chinese Communist Party," emphasized Pastreich, who ran as independent candidate in the 2020 US presidential election.

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