The dexterity with which China has converted the biological attack unleashed from Wuhan with COVID-19 into a victory is pathologically and diabolically cynical. President Xi Jinping, whose foundations were shaking within China, has been transformed from a demon to a hero through intense psychological operations. China was fighting on two fronts, against COVID-19 and hiding the truth; it appears to have won the latter. Dissent continues to be throttled and dissenters disappear as before. China’s official COVID-19 figures as of March 21 are 3,255 dead and 81,008 infected, but actual figures of how many died may never be known. China Mobile is showing they lost 8.116 million users in January-February 2020. Such large numbers switching their service provider in such a short span is highly unlikely; it appears indicative of what Beijing is hiding.

The brutal credentials of China’s communist regime are well established –  tanks mowing down unarmed students at Tiananmen Square and, presently,    concentration camps in Xinjiang torturing Uighurs. China’s state-sponsored media claims COVID-19 came to Wuhan by 300 ‘infected’ US soldiers participating in the World Military Games in October 2019. These games saw over 9000 participants from 140 countries including India. So how come the 300 US participants purportedly infected with virus passed it on only to the Chinese? Surely the US contingent did not include a task force from SOCOM that broke into the PLA-overseen lab and set a timer on a vial to shatter it only after the games were over. How come the pandemic did not go global then but was only in Wuhan, which Beijing put a lid on? 

But this is not about how Beijing treats or kills Chinese nationals or lets loose the virus to control its own population. This is about the blood on the hands of China’s regime for the over 11,000 deaths and over 300,000 infected with COVID-19 globally by March 21, with these figures multiplying every second, cities/regions/nations locked down, economies shattered and unemployment going berserk – in effect de-stabilizing the world because of its biological warfare experiment gone horribly wrong. 

SARS broke out in China in November 2002, but China reported it to the WHO only in February 2003, by which time SARS spread to 37 countries. The outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan was hidden by China for months until it became impossible to hide any longer. In July 2019, a group of Chinese scientists in Canada were accused of spying in Canada's National Microbiology Lab (NML) in Winnipeg; allegedly smuggling data/virus to China. Biological warfare, economic warfare and psychological warfare are all part of China's concept of 'Unrestricted Warfare', originally aimed at destroying America but which Beijing employs against all adversaries. China's biological warfare programme is believed to be in an advanced stage.

Dr Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Act, is quite sure that COVID-19 is an offensive biological warfare weapon with DNA-genetic engineering. This is known to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The notion that COVID-19 originated outside China has no scientific evidence to support Beijing’s theory, but the WHO, instead of nailing China for the global COVID-19 outbreak caused by its biowarfare experiment going horribly wrong is busy wagging its tail like an obedient puppy – merely calling it a pandemic because China is the second-largest donor to the WHO. China recently pledged $20 million to help the WHO fight the COVID-19 outbreak. Also, the declaration of this pandemic by the WHO was at a belated stage. It is absolutely pathetic for the WHO to highlight China’s ‘transparency’ when it has no capability!

Clearly, the world needs to wake up and call for an international tribunal to try China for its acts of biological warfare that has caused immense human misery across the world, in addition to massive damage to economies. It does not matter if China abstains, which it would. The tribunal must also probe the role of the WHO, its effectiveness if any, especially when faced with pandemics.

Italy and Iran are the worst hit but the EU is also severely affected, as also is America. Japan and South Korea have had their share of COVID-19 along with other countries of Southeast Asia. India is transiting from stage two to stage three and the worst may yet emerge.

It stands to reason that all the affected countries must stand together, not only to fight the scourge but also make China accountable for the outbreak. There is no denying that most of the world is dependent on Chinese products but it would be good for countries and individuals to now shun China and Chinese products until China’s communist regime reverses course, instead of going more and more rogue.

(The author is an Indian Army veteran. The views expressed are personal)