By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
Steve Bannon has asserted that scientists in the Wuhan lab have “defected” and are working with US intelligence agencies. President Trump’s former chief strategist, a staunch China opponent, said that researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are cooperating with the West to build a case that the COVID-19 outbreak may have really leaked from a lab. “They are not talking to the media yet, but there are people out of the Wuhan lab and other labs that have come to the West and are turning over evidence of the culpability of the Chinese Communist Party,” Bannon told the Daily Mail. “I think people are going to be shocked.”
Bannon said in an interview, that the defectors from the lab, long eyed as the potential source for the pandemic, were also speaking with agencies in Europe and the UK. “People around these labs have been leaving China and Hong Kong since mid-February,” he went on. “[US intelligence] along with MI5 and MI6 are trying to build a very thorough legal case, which may take a long time. It’s not like James Bond.”
As reported by Newsmax.com , Hong Kong scientist Dr. Li-Meng Yan who said she fled China for the U.S. because she feared the Chinese government would make her “disappear” gave an interview to Fox News. In line with Bannon’s claims, she asserted that the Chinese government knew about COVID-19 well before it claimed they did, and that her lab supervisors ignored and silenced her early research on the virus. “The reason I came to the U.S. is because I deliver the message of the truth of COVID,” she said. Yan said she worked at the University of Hong Kong and was one of the first scientists to investigate the coronavirus. She said she was asked by her supervisor to look into SARS-like cases coming out of mainland China at the end of 2019. “I had to tell them the truth,” she told Fox. “I’m doing the right thing. So I tell them that ‘Don’t let me go back to China. I’m the one who came to tell the truth here of COVID-19 … And please protect me. If not, the China government will kill me.’”
As reported by the NY Post, last month, Bannon was at the forefront of a publicity feat, where he and Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese billionaire, flew propeller planes displaying anti-Communist Party messages. The planes flying over New York carried a message that read, “Congratulations to Federal State of New China”. Bannon hopes to declare the Chinese government illegitimate. He has been outspoken in criticizing the Chinese government for their alleged guilt in the global crisis, as well as the World Health Organization. The Chinese government has denied claims the virus stemmed from a lab, and the WHO has dismissed statements from President Donald Trump that it is acting as China’s “puppet”.
Bannon went so far as to warn British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to withdraw plans to allow China-based communication technology giant, Huawei, to work in the UK’s new 5G network. “To me, Huawei should be shut down throughout the world in every country, and their assets liquidated,” Bannon said. “I say to Boris Johnson — shut down Huawei, and keep calm and carry on.”
