Biden claims US forces will defend Taiwan
Samizdat | September 19, 2022
President Joe Biden once again said that Washington is willing to use military force to defend Taiwan from Beijing, if necessary, while insisting that the US still adheres to ‘One China’ policy and is “not encouraging” the island’s independence.
During a ‘60 Minutes’ CBS News interview aired Sunday night, Biden was asked if the US would become directly involved to “defend the island” in a potential conflict between Beijing and Taiwan, including through the use of military force.
“Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack…” Biden replied, before the broadcaster cut away to clarify the controversial statement. A White House official apparently explained to CBS, before the interview was aired, that US policy “has not changed” and that officially the US would still neither confirm nor deny whether American forces would defend Taiwan.
“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, US forces, US men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?” the interviewer Scott Pelley asked again.
“Yes,” reiterated Biden.
The US leader however also said Washington respects the ‘One China’ policy, by which it recognizes that there is only one China led by Beijing. “We agree with what we signed onto a long time ago. And that there’s One China policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. We are not moving – we’re not encouraging their being independent. That’s their decision.”
Biden previously made a similar statement in May, calling it America’s “commitment” to protect Taiwan. At the time, amid an outcry from Beijing, the White House was also forced to “clarify” the US leader’s words, saying it did not constitute any changes in Washington’s policy towards Taiwan or China.
NATO membership will harm Swedish international image and cause economic losses
The country may see a decrease in its exports if confirmed its adhesion to NATO
By Lucas Leiroz | September 16, 2022
Having military strength is an important issue for any country in the world. However, some states benefit from the image of “peaceful countries” and “neutral nations”. This is precisely the Swedish case. Decades ago, Sweden began to invest in a security policy based on absolute neutrality. Its image before international partners is seen as that of a country that does not get involved in conflicts and cares abut peace. Therefore, changing this stance with a possible NATO membership could have a strong impact on Swedish foreign policy.
One of the direct and immediate impacts would be on the economic issue. The Scandinavian country may suffer losses in its exports due to the possible NATO membership. Some countries that currently import products from – or export to – Sweden would certainly consider it problematic after the accession to the alliance, which would lead them to seek other trading partners. The Swedes would begin to deal with a reality that is common to every country that invests in becoming a military power: facing boycotts and restrictions in negotiations with countries with different interests.
In this sense, Per Högselius, professor of history of technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), comments that the Swedish state is very sensitive to world changes and depends on a stable scenario to keep its economic and industrial structure solid and strong. One of the points that most benefits the country allowing it to remain free of problems concerning the international scenario is precisely its image of a small and unarmed state – which will surely change now.
“Swedish industry has often benefited from the fact that Sweden has enjoyed an image abroad as a small, harmless country with good relations with in principle all other countries (…) Sweden is extremely sensitive to events in the outside world, and much more so today than in the 1970s”, Högselius said.
In fact, many problems for the national industry may arise after the confirmation of Sweden’s entry into NATO. The country’s main exports are focused on machinery, transport equipment and chemical products. Interestingly, these three sectors account for the majority of Swedish exports to China. In a scenario with increasing tensions between China and NATO, with the alliance considering the Asian country one of its main threats, it is possible to predict that Beijing, despite being quite pragmatic, may try to seek other partners to obtain some of the products it currently imports from Sweden.
When we analyze the European scenario, many things can get worse too. In a future eventual situation of pacification of the conflict in Ukraine and normalization of relations with Russia, Sweden will be unable to reverse the path that is being taken now, if its entry into NATO is really consolidated. The Scandinavian country will be viewed with suspicion by the Russians, who will place limits on bilateral cooperation – which will take Sweden off an important trade route for iron, steel, fertilizers, among other essential products. In other words, decisions taken against Russia now could seriously affect business in the future.
Furthermore, Swedish diplomacy itself would be destabilized by joining NATO. This entry would be the immediate reversal of decades of work built by Swedish strategists to transform the country into a militarily neutral and economically developed pole. Foreign policy focused on neutrality and peace would be replaced by a program of military objectives unilaterally instituted by the alliance. In practice, all countries that currently see Sweden as a non-ideological and geopolitically harmless partner would act more cautiously during negotiations with the Swedes as they would also be negotiating with a new representative of the largest military alliance on the planet.
The most interesting thing is to note how the possible accession, in addition to such economic losses, will bring few real strategic benefits to Sweden. As established by the regulations, the country will commit to militarily assist any other member state of the alliance in the event of an attack. But in exchange for such a commitment, little is offered to the Swedes. In fact, Sweden will remain a militarily weak country, but with many more international enemies than it has today.
Unfortunately, however, the Western-supported anti-Russian paranoia seems to have overcome the strategic sense of Swedish decision-makers, in addition to scaring the local population. Currently, almost all parties are support joining NATO, as do 58% of the population. It is very likely that the process will be completed at some point in the near future and the country will take this extremely negative step for its own interests.
Considering that Sweden is already going through an internal political crisis, with PM Magdalena Andersson having announced that she will resign after the defeat of her supporters in the parliamentary elections, the near future will be tense for the country. The next Swedish government will deal with strong popular and parliamentary pressure, in addition to excessive obligations in NATO, while the country will continue to be militarily weak, but it will lose its neutrality status, bringing impacts in all areas of its foreign policy.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
Iran given roadmap for joining Russia and China in major bloc
Samizdat | September 15, 2022
Iran has signed a memorandum paving the way to transition from its current observer status to full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The Middle-Eastern nation, which the US has long sought to undermine with diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions, made a formal step on Thursday to become the ninth member of the organization. Among the SCO’s heavyweights are Russia and China, two major powers that are on Washington’s list of geopolitical opponents.
The SCO was created in 2001 as an intragovernmental forum aimed at fostering trust and developing economic and humanitarian ties in Asia.
It currently has eight permanent members: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The last is currently hosting the annual summit of the leaders of the member states in the city of Samarkand.
Iran has been an SCO observer since 2005. Its delegation to the summit is headed by President Ebrahim Raisi, who met with senior Uzbek officials on Wednesday.
The memorandum, which spells the commitments that Tehran will undertake to become an SCO member, was signed by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming, the host country’s foreign ministry reported.
Yury Ushakov, a foreign affairs advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said earlier this week that Iran could qualify for being upgraded to full membership before next year’s SCO summit in India.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev touted this year’s event as a turning point for the organization. He cited the rapidly growing interest of nations in closer involvement with the SCO and said that it served as an example of how a “deep crisis of trust at the global level” can be overcome by parties willing to do so. He also stressed the scale of the group, which accounts for roughly half of the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP.
Belarus, also an SCO observer, is set to start the formal process for full membership this year. Egypt and Qatar formally joined the organization as dialogue partners on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia is scheduled to do the same, while Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Myanmar, and the Maldives are expected to begin their respective paths to receiving the same status.
The Big picture of disengagement in Ladakh
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | SEPTEMBER 10, 2022
The Ministry of External Affairs has done the right thing by explaining its taciturn press release on Thursday in a single sentence regarding the disengagement of troops in the area of Gogra-Hotsprings along the LAC in the Western Sector of India-China border areas.
The Official Spokesman Arindam Bagchi shared on Friday more details. Broadly, a consensus reached at the 16th round of India China Corps Commander Level Meeting on 17 July has since been fleshed out by the two sides, and the actual disengagement commenced on Thursday which will be completed on coming Monday. The following key elements draw attention:
- Both sides will “cease forward deployments in this area in a phased, coordinated and verified manner, resulting in the return of the troops of both sides to their respective areas.”
- All temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the area by both sides “will be dismantled and mutually verified.”
- “The landforms in the area will be restored to pre-stand-off period by both sides.”
- “The agreement ensures that the LAC in this area will be strictly observed and respected by both sides, and that there will be no unilateral change in status quo.”
- Going forward, the sides will “take the talks forward and resolve the remaining issues along LAC and restore peace and tranquility in India-China border areas.”
The last two elements — prohibiting “unilateral change in status quo” and the commitment to resolve the remaining issues — are inter-related.
Simply put, there will be no attempts by either side to indulge in any “Mission Creep” to seize unilateral advantage of territory. This is hugely important, given the two vastly divergent narratives on what precipitated the standoff two years ago. How the “status quo” is to be understood is not yet in the public domain but presumably, it is to mutual satisfaction.
A judicious mix of firmness and realism made this agreement possible. Some Indian commentators have rushed to belittle its importance by linking it to a possible meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping next week at Samarkand.
That said, if there is going to be a meeting at Samarkand, this disengagement provides a setting for constructive discussion. Both governments have high stakes in maintaining peace and tranquility along the LAC in the present hugely transformative period in the world order. For China, issues of war and peace in the Taiwan Straits are a top priority.
As for India, a crucial period of adjustment to new geopolitical conditions lies ahead which presents daunting challenges to its strategic autonomy and independent foreign policies, stemming from the West’s attempts to polarise the world community against Russia and China.
Both India and China sense the high importance of pursuing their respective trajectories of economic growth and development optimally in a difficult and unfavourable climate internationally. Speaking of India, our analysts prefer — either due to ignorance or with deliberation — to sidestep the co-relation between a peaceful and tranquil border and the country’s overall economic situation.
The Ukraine conflict is adding to global inflation by raising the cost of energy and other raw commodities while an increasingly hawkish US Fed is tightening its policies, and significantly reducing its balance sheet. There could be looming currency and foreign exchange worries. Time may have come to build up a clearing system among BRICS countries. India’s current foreign exchange reserves are at their lowest since October 2020. Persistent foreign outflows from India’s equity and debt markets have also weighed on the rupee.
There is continuing Western interference in India-China relations and the fact that the government has sequestered the bilateral track with China is not going to be to the liking of the West. Fundamentally, the contradiction is that without India, there is no “Indo-Pacific Strategy” against China.
In a recent interview with an Indian newspaper, the former Prime Minister of Australia and an acclaimed hawk on China, Kevin Rudd, posed the question that troubles the Western mind most: “What does India do ultimately, if China does unilaterally resolve the border, as Gorbachev did, with the Russian Federation within the Soviet Union in 1989?”
Rudd repeated, “what would India then do in terms of China’s rise if the border was resolved, and India and China and Russia folded into one enormous market of mutual opportunity?” In such a scenario, Rudd could see only a binary choice for India: it should either “bandwagon” with China or “balance” China.
Rudd must be a terribly disappointed man to see that there could be a Third Way. China is not really expecting anyone to “bandwagon” with it. Its DNA is similar to India’s — pursuit of national interests while retaining strategic autonomy (even with regard to its partner Russia.)
China takes satisfaction that India treasures its strategic autonomy. Its expectation is only that India should not align with the US to pursue hostile policies. That is perfectly understandable, too.
A consensus with China that neither party will try to gain territorial advantage is the maximum that can be expected today and the irreducible minimum required until such time as the Indian opinion can accept a fair and just settlement of the boundary question in a spirit of compromise.
Notably, Chinese commentators have appreciated EAM Jaishankar’s forceful remarks through March-April enunciating India’s oil purchases from Russia giving primacy to national interests. Conceivably, such assertion of India’s strategic autonomy created a favourable ambience in the ongoing talks at various levels with China, leading to the disengagement in Gogra-Hotsprings.
China and India have many common interests in the emergent world order. Only two days ago, PM’s remarks at the Eastern Economic Forum plenary at Vladivostok signalled India’s interest to work with Russia in the Arctic (where China is also a participant) as also in the Northern Sea Route (where China too is a stakeholder).
By the way, the Russia-China Joint Statement on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development (February 4, 2022)speaks about the two countries “consistently intensifying practical cooperation for the sustainable development of the Arctic” as well as the “development and use of Arctic routes.”
There is no empirical evidence to show that China has blocked India’s pathway in the Arctic or the Russian Far East, Southeast Asia, Central Asia or West Asia. The disengagement in Ladakh gives hope that the bilateral relations can be restored, especially in the economic sphere. There is no question that India should be vigilant about its defence and national security. But to be paranoid about it or getting entrapped in xenophobic attitudes will be wasteful and ultimately debilitating.
India, China Break Border Deadlock as They Begin Withdrawing Troops From Contested Ladakh
Samizdat – 08.09.2022
The last disengagement of troops on the loosely demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) took place a year ago. Delhi and Beijing have held more than half a dozen military and diplomatic talks following clashes on the border in 2020 that resulted in 20 Indian soldiers and four PLA troops being killed.
Indian and Chinese troops deployed at Gogra-Hotsprings (PP-15) in the eastern sector of the LAC have begun to disengage in a “coordinated and planned way,” the armies announced in a joint statement on Thursday afternoon.
The disengagement, halted for more than a year, began per the “consensus reached in the 16th round of India China Corps Commander Level Meeting” held on July 17.
The development is conducive to peace and tranquility in the border areas, the Indian Army added.
The news comes days ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, which will be attended by world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping.
The border stand-off between India and China broke out in April 2020 over infrastructure development works in the Pangong Tso region, escalating into violent clashes on June 15-16, in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed.
Each side deployed tanks, fighter jets, and 60,000 troops in the areas behind the LAC.
Even as the two countries withdrew troops and tanks from Lake Pangong in February 2021, the process to separate their forces from other “friction areas” such as the Depsang Plains, Gogra, and Hotspring were stalled over a range of issues.
US assesses China threat
Samizdat | September 8, 2022
There is a “distinct threat” that China could attempt to seize Taiwan by military means, a top US official has warned.
Appearing on ‘The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations’ on Bloomberg TV, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said: “I think it remains a distinct threat that there could be a military contingency around Taiwan.” He added the leadership in Beijing has “actually stated as official policy that it is not taking the invasion of Taiwan off the table.”
Sullivan also revealed that he would meet congressional leaders on Wednesday to advocate a bill that, if passed, would see US policy toward the self-governing island change. Among other things, he proposes designating Taiwan as one of America’s major non-NATO allies. The bill also calls for the allocation of $4.5 billion in security aid for Taipei.
When asked to clarify Washington’s position on the issue, Sullivan replied by saying that the Biden administration continues to “push back against any effort to change the status quo by force.”
While the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond when Bloomberg reached out for comment, Beijing’s envoy stateside, Qin Gang, warned last month that the US had gone “too far” in the region. The diplomat stressed at the time that should the Biden administration further escalate the situation, China would be forced to respond. The ambassador also denied as “baseless” allegations that Beijing is planning a military offensive against Taiwan in the near future.
Taiwan has been de facto independent since 1949, after the losing side in the Chinese Civil War fled to the island and set up its own administration there. While only a handful of nations have since recognized Taiwan as a sovereign country, Taipei has long enjoyed close, unofficial ties with the US, with the latter supplying weapons to the island.
Meanwhile, on paper, Washington still adheres to the One-China principle.
Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of its sovereign territory which was temporarily seized by separatists.
Liz Truss to contain China and Russia amid massive internal problems
Britain’s new prime minister will continue Boris Johnson’s foreign policy
By Ahmed Adel | September 8, 2022
Liz Truss as British Prime Minister does not bode well for peace in the Asia-Pacific region as her stance on foreign policy is quite predictable. During her tenure as Foreign Secretary in Boris Johnson’s cabinet, Liz Truss obviously spoke many times on foreign policy issues, but often in a manner that seemingly appeared she wanted a revival of the British Empire. In fact, the British press called her the most hawkish politician in the Conservative government.
Her so-called toughness is especially evident in her stance towards Russia and China. For Liz Truss, both Russia and China are threats to humanity. Despite having this belief, it is evident that she in fact knows very little about these countries, especially when we consider that she had earlier this year confused Russian regions with Ukrainian territory and even more recently said Ukraine had survived a lot of invasions – “from the Mongols to the Tatars”, without realising Mongols and Tatars are one and the same.
And in this light, it is remembered that a year ago an official British document described China as a “systemic competitor”. With such a view, it is not surprising that London has created a lot of problems in its China policy. The British government condemned Beijing for its human rights violations in its western Xinjiang Autonomous Region, expressed dissatisfaction with Beijing’s “Security Law” for Hong Kong, and even welcomed the visit of American politicians to Taiwan. All of these provocations naturally aggravate Beijing.
This conservative approach could interfere with normal economic and trade relations between the two countries, which are contradictorily important to Britain as China is its third largest trading partner. Rather, by inflating anti-China sentiment, the British government wants to distract people from the country’s massive internal problems: high inflation, rising fuel prices and increasing poverty.
It is clear that Liz Truss will continue the anti-China line of her predecessors. Her newly appointed foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has vowed to take a tough stance on Russia and China.
According to Jonathan Sullivan, director of China programmes at Nottingham University’s Asia Research Institute, Britain’s so-called “pragmatic diplomacy” has lost its reputation.
“In ordinary circumstances, I’d say the new PM would ultimately pursue a more realistic and balanced approach to foreign affairs once in office, but the UK’s reputation for pragmatic diplomacy has taken a battering in recent years,” he said. “Labelling a major trade partner a threat would be a remarkable development, but the fact that it is not totally inconceivable speaks to the uncertainties that exist around Truss and the negative momentum that has built up around UK-China relations.”
None-the-less, it is ridiculous to hear the British talk about a so-called Chinese threat considering the country has not been at war since 1974. Meanwhile, during that period, Britain has battled in the Falklands War, Gulf War, Operation Desert Fox, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Libyan and Syrian wars, among others.
After Brexit, the UK wanted to prove that it was still a great and relevant power without the EU and participate in global processes. One of these points is the South China Sea, where the UK plans to gain a foothold. Under previous Conservative prime ministers, it was expressed that the British Navy needed a regular presence in the South China Sea. They also plan to build UK naval bases in the region, like in Brunei.
So far, there are no permanent bases, but last year the British Navy’s newest and most powerful aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth II, sailed through the South China Sea. Certainly, under the Truss government, British warships will patrol these waters only for the sake of provoking China. There is an external reason for this – like the Americans, the British would claim that they are sending their fleet to distant lands to ensure “freedom of navigation” off China.
In addition, the desire to play an important role in the Indo-Pacific region is demonstrated by the UK’s participation in the new military bloc AUKUS, established in September 2021. There is no doubt that the Liz Truss government will continue to commit to its obligations under this alliance with the US and Australia.
All this goes against the vital interests of China and the wider East Asia region. But it is likely that the British prime minister will go in this direction. The question is whether she will be able to achieve her objectives in containing the Rise of China, something that is seemingly unlikely.
It is recalled that only days ago the Indian economy surpassed that of Britain, meaning that the former colonial master has slipped to sixth place in the global GDP ranking, with India rising to fifth place. This also comes as research has found that two-thirds of UK families could be in fuel poverty by January. With compounding economic and societal issues, it appears that Truss will continue in the same mould of Boris Johnson in not dealing with this and instead prioritise the attempt to maintain Britain’s relevancy in the world.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
China rejects West’s call for Russian oil price cap
Samizdat | September 5, 2022
Beijing opposes the decision made by the G7 nations to introduce a price cap on Russian oil, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday.
“Oil is crucial for ensuring global energy security,” she told a briefing, adding: “we hope that the countries concerned… will make constructive efforts, and not the other way around.”
The spokesperson urged the G7 states to instead “fortify dialogue and advance negotiations.”
On Friday, the finance ministers of the G7 (the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan) agreed to impose a price ceiling on Russian oil, to limit the country’s revenues. The plan includes banning services such as insurance and financing to ships transporting Russian crude above an agreed price threshold.
On Saturday, the European Union urged China and India to join the G7’s price cap initiative. The EU claimed it’s unfair for countries to pay excess revenues to Moscow. China and India have ramped up their purchases of Russian oil lately, benefiting from discounted rates.
Moscow has warned it will suspend supplies of oil and petroleum products to states that decide to enforce a price cap.
Europe Has No Real Alternatives To Russian Gas: Ex-Aramco EVP
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | September 1, 2022
Echoing what Zoltan Pozsar said in his latest must read note, the former executive vice president at Saudi Aramco, Sadad Al-Husseini, told CNBC on Monday that there’s not enough capacity in the world to replace Russia’s gas supply to the European Union, while Moscow has plenty of markets to sell its energy to.
“The US doesn’t have the LNG capacity to replace Russia’s exports to Europe,” he said, noting that power bills across the EU are set to soar this winter. He did not comment on China reselling Russian LNG to Europe although we expects others will soon.
According to Al-Husseini, the lack of freely available supply could lead to serious problems on the global energy market. “This situation is a new world, and it’s not a very good one for energy,” he warned.
“In any case, there isn’t enough LNG capacity in the world to make up for the Russian exports to Europe,” the former executive said, adding that, “It will take years for the EU to find resources to replace Russian supply.”
He also said that while Russia may lose Europe as an end-market, there are “plenty of alternative markets” for Russian energy, including China, Japan, or India, that eagerly flount Western sanction, realizing that the Biden admin is increasingly toothless in punishing sanctions violators.
Meanwhile, Europe does not have alternative energy sources, he said, “while the US is maxed out already, North Africa has got problems,” and OPEC is also running out of spare capacity.
“So, it’s a global problem,” he said.
The official suggested that, while the Russian economy may suffer under Western sanctions, the rest of the world will be suffering with them.
However, he stressed that “Russia may recover a lot sooner than Europe.”
The Great Lab Leak Cover-Up By the U.S. Government
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 30, 2022
Thomas Fazi, who has a book on The Covid Consensus coming out shortly with Toby Green, has written an excellent summary in UnHerd of the evidence of a cover-up of the possible lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 by those behind the kind of research that would have produced it.
Much of the work on SARS-like CoVs performed in Wuhan was part of an active and highly collaborative U.S.-China scientific research programme funded by the U.S. Government – primarily through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), directed by Anthony Fauci, which is part of the NIH – and coordinated by the U.S.-based non-governmental organisation EcoHealth Alliance (EHA). The group’s research work went beyond the simple analysis of existing coronaviruses, and actually involved the engineering of ‘chimeric’ bat coronaviruses, some of which proved to be potentially more infectious to humans – a highly risky technique known as gain-of-function.
In 2018, EcoHealth and the WIV (in collaboration with other institutions) sent a grant proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which included a plan to insert furin cleavage sites into existing bat coronaviruses – spots in the surface protein of a virus that can boost its entry into human cells. The DARPA proposal was rejected – and yet the presence of a furin cleavage site is precisely what sets SARS-CoV-2 apart from all known SARS-like coronaviruses. Did the researchers carry out the research anyway, possibly using other sources of funding? Nobel Prize-winning virologist David Baltimore stated that he considered this to be “the smoking gun for the origin of the virus”.
In light of all this, it’s hardly surprising that in the early days of the pandemic, at the highest levels of the U.S. establishment, the question of whether the virus might have been engineered at the WIV, possibly through research part-funded by the U.S. Government, was taken very seriously. As a result of an FoIA request, we know that on February 1st 2020, Anthony Fauci convened a “totally confidential” conference call with at least a dozen high-level experts from around the world, many of whom privately admitted that there was a very high probability that the virus had been artificially engineered and had then “escaped” from the Wuhan lab.
Yet not only did the NIH fail to disclose this to the public or to Congress, but the emails released under the FoIA suggest that it took an early and active role in promoting the ‘zoonotic hypothesis’ and the rejection of the laboratory-associated hypothesis. Indeed, within days of the February 1st call, a group of virologists, including some who were on it and had endorsed the ‘artificial origin’ theory, prepared the first draft of a hugely influential paper on The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 – subsequently published in Nature – that argued for the exact opposite.
Moreover, the NIH has resisted the release of important evidence, such as the grant proposals and project reports of EHA, and has continued to redact materials released under FoIA, including a remarkable 290-page redaction in a recent release. Even more incredibly, at some point after March 2020 a number of early SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences were deleted from the NIH’s own archive at the request of researchers in Wuhan.
The strangeness doesn’t end here. In February 2020, an influential letter signed by 27 global experts was published in the Lancet, strongly condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin”. The letter proved crucial, alongside the aforementioned Nature paper, in nipping in the bud the lab-leak hypothesis and giving the illusion of scientific consensus. In late 2020, however, emails released following a FoIA request showed that the Lancet statement had been orchestrated by one of the 27 co-authors – none other than Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance. It was also revealed that all but one of the other 26 scientists were linked to the Wuhan lab, their colleagues or funders.
Daszak was first appointed in late 2020 as Chair of the task force created by the Lancet COVID-19 Commission with the aim of establishing none other than “the origins of COVID-19”; and shortly thereafter as the only U.S. representative to a WHO fact-finding mission to China tasked with the same goal. Unsurprisingly, both task forces found that the virus was most likely zoonotic (i.e., natural) in origin, and that transmission through a laboratory incident was extremely unlikely.
The WHO report, in particular, came under heavy criticism, leading to the establishment of a specific work group tasked with ascertaining the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of Novel Pathogens, which published its first preliminary report in June 2022. The results were inconclusive, largely because “key pieces of data” from China were missing, leading the WHO to recommend in its strongest terms yet that a deeper probe was required into whether a lab accident may be to blame. As we have seen, however, it’s not only the Chinese government that is covering up its tracks about its possible involvement in the engineering of SARS-CoV-2 – but the American one as well.
Thomas notes that a new campaign is now underway to try to finally discredit the lab-leak theory, with two new studies that purport to provide more evidence that SARS-CoV-2 came from the Huanan Seafood Market leading several outlets to claim that “the Covid lab leak theory is dead” – a claim to which the Daily Sceptic‘s Dr. Noah Carl has responded here.
The question is, with those involved having closed ranks and refusing to speak or cooperate, who can force them to reveal their secrets, or must we accept that their cover-up has succeeded?
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Book Review
The Zeolite Book — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
The volcanic mineral medicine will not patent — for the toxic burden medicine will not name
Lies are Unbekoming – October 30, 2026
Zeolite is old. It is in Roman concrete that has held for two thousand years. It’s in the water filters of ancient cisterns. It’s in the stomachs of Pacific livestock whose keepers knew, somehow, that this grey crumbling rock made the animals healthier. It’s in Soviet clinical protocols from the 1960s. It’s in the standard emergency response to the Chernobyl explosion.
In 1986, after the Chernobyl reactor failure, the Soviet Union manufactured and distributed natural zeolite at industrial scale — for soil remediation, for livestock feed, for human consumption, for the cleanup itself. Karl Hecht, who had been director of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pathophysiology at the Charité of Humboldt University Berlin, spent the six decades after that building the clinical research base — on silicon’s role in human health, on zeolite’s clinical safety, on its applications in ageing. In 2018, Pavelić and colleagues published a comprehensive clinical safety review of natural clinoptilolite in Frontiers in Pharmacology. In 2019, Mastinu analysed its binding affinities. In the Western medical literature, these works sit largely uncited.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a volcanic mineral with six decades of Soviet clinical work behind it, two major peer-reviewed Western reviews, and ongoing clinical use across the former Eastern Bloc, remains almost entirely absent from Western medical practice — and what the toxic burden it’s meant to address actually is.
The Zeolite Book gathers the Soviet clinical record, the Western peer-reviewed studies, three contemporary practitioner voices, and three serious counterviews into one honest treatment. That’s why the book runs to seven appendices. 288 pages, four parts, three practitioner voices, three counterviews, seven appendices. The honest treatment is the argument.
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- Weaponized Journalism: 2021 Sayer Ji Interview with NPR
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
