Over the past two days, the hashtag “Research Confirms: The Novel Coronavirus Was Made by an American Company” (#研究证实新冠病毒是美国公司制造#) has been trending on Weibo. The topic became big after an article by the news blogging account Tao Wen (韬闻) circulated on WeChat and was also republished by Chinese state outlets Global Times (环球网) and China Daily (中国日报).
The article first claims that the Russian army recently found evidence that biological labs were set up in Ukraine to produce biological weapons and that the U.S. was using bats to study the coronavirus, before switching to the topic of Americans being responsible for creating Covid19. The article’s main source is The Exposé, a British blog that previously falsely claimed that Covid-19 vaccines cause ‘a form of AIDS’ or that ‘82% of pregnancies end in miscarriage’ after Covid vaccination.
Right now, the top trending topic on Weibo: Research confirms that #COVID19 was created by a U.S. company. State-affiliated Huanqiu posted an article that cites The Daily Expose, a UK conspiracy theory blog, as a source, whose claims were debunked by fact-checkers. @WhatsOnWeibo pic.twitter.com/L8ghhja2tA
— Chu Yang (@ChuYang_Journ) March 24, 2022
Both The Exposé and the Chinese article link back to a story published by The Daily Mail on March 3 of 2022 about the Covid virus containing a tiny chunk of DNA that allegedly matches the sequence patented by pharmaceutical company Moderna in 2016.
These articles all focus on a study that was first published in February by Ambati et al (2022) in Frontiers in Virology relating to the genetic makeup of SARS-Cov-2, which caused the COVID-19 pandemic. According to this study, there is a small portion (a 19-nucleotide sequence in a 30,000-nucleotides long genome) of the SARS-CoV-2 genome that shows a 100% reverse match in a proprietary sequence found in a United States patent that was filed on Feb. 4, 2016, under patent number 9,587,003. This leads back to a patent by ModernaTX, Inc. (US) that was filed for the purpose of the production of oncology-related proteins and peptides (link).
The study writes that “the reverse complement sequence present in SARS-CoV-2 may occur randomly but other possibilities must be considered,” with the authors describing the findings “highly unusual” and calling for “further investigations.”
In The Daily Mail, Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, responded to the study. Although he called it “interesting,” he also said that “sometimes these things happen fortuitously, sometimes it’s the result of convergent evolution (when organisms evolve independently to have similar traits to adapt to their environment).” He also commented that the findings do not contribute to the debate about whether Covid was engineered, adding: “I wouldn’t call it a smoking gun because it’s too small.”
According to the lengthy post published by The Exposé, an anonymous ‘concerned reader’ analyzes the study by Ambati et al and not only draws the conclusion that there is “100% biochemi proof that Covid19 was man made,” but also that evidence “100% confirms Moderna created Covid19.” These claims were also repeated in the article published by Global Times and China Daily on March 23, emphasizing that ‘British media’ published these findings and that even the media in Western countries are standing up against the U.S. government. The article writes that this ‘British media’ outlet is “The Daily Mail” (“每日邮报”), while sharing screenshots from the post by the questionable blog The Exposé.
“A clickbait article by an exaggerating blogger, but it still becomes a hot topic and everyone believes it”
The origins of Covid19 have been a political issue ever since early 2020 when speculation was first raised that the novel coronavirus may have emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan. A statement in The Lancet published in February of 2020 condemned any rumors on the virus origins, claiming that scientific research “overwhelmingly” concludes that Covid19 originated in wildlife, and peer-reviewed research from late 2021 further supported the theory that Covid19 originated at the seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan and did not come from a lab.
Chinese officials have repeatedly denied a possible leak from a Chinese laboratory and have emphasized their cooperation with international efforts to find the origins of the pandemic. In May of 2021, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that the U.S. was actually not genuinely interested in the scientific origin of the virus, but that its search for the origins of the novel coronavirus was merely about “political manipulation” and “blame-shifting” (read more here).
Nearly ten months later, however, it seems that Chinese officials are also starting to point more fingers and that state media outlets are mixing up science and speculation when it comes to presenting the latest research into the genetic makeup of SARS-Cov-2. Chinese media are also combining news stories related to speculations about the American responsibility for the pandemic and the supposed presence of American bio-labs in Ukraine, presenting them in a singular context (for example in this Weibo post).
These updated media narratives on the American role in the Ukraine conflict and the global Covid19 crisis add fuel to existing anti-American sentiments on Chinese social media.
“The world would be better off without the U.S.”, a typical comment says. “This is proof that the U.S. is the world’s tumor. We’ll only reach world peace once it collapses.”
“This makes me feel sick,” another commenter wrote, posting a (North Korean) anti-American propaganda poster. One other Weibo user (@elo_不太正常) posted a photoshopped image of the Statue of Liberty wearing a ‘corona’ crown and holding up a lethal potion.
At the same time, there are also many Chinese social media users who are pointing out that the “Research Confirms: The Novel Coronavirus Was Made by an American Company” hashtag and recent Chinese media reports have conflated some speculation with scientific facts, and have confused the British misinformation site The Exposé with the The Daily Mail (the URL of the first is ‘dailyexpose.uk’ while the latter is ‘dailymail.co.uk’).
Others also express worry about how fast disinformation can circulate online, especially when it is republished by the official media, which they also criticize: “The same media censoring news about the chained woman are now sensationalizing this news,” some say (for more on the chained woman, see here).
“Straightaway, you could see this was a clickbait article by a blogger who is exaggerating, but it still becomes a hot topic and everyone firmly believes it immediately,” one Weibo user writes, with another person saying: “Why is state media always forwarding other people’s writing?”
“Although the U.S. manipulates a lot, this media source is not one with authority, it has insufficient credibility,” other commenters write, as well as: “Is this source trustworthy? Please don’t incite feelings,” “This is just sensationalism.”
To read more about Covid19 and China, see our articles here.
To read more about ongoing tensions between China and the U.S., click here.
By Manya Koetse
References (other sources hyperlinked within text)
The Expose [‘by a concerned reader’]. 2022. “BREAKING: Official Biochemical and Statistical Evidence 100% confirms Moderna created Covid-19.” The Exposé, March 3 https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/03/03/evidence-confirms-moderna-created-covid-19/ [March 25, 2022].
Boyd, Connor. 2022. “Scientists claim Covid virus contains tiny chunk of DNA that ‘matches sequence patented by Moderna THREE YEARS before pandemic began.'” MailOnline, February 23 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10542309/Fresh-lab-leak-fears-study-finds-genetic-code-Covids-spike-protein-linked-Moderna-patent.html [March 25, 2022].
Ambati BK, Varshney A, Lundstrom K, Palú G, Uhal BD, Uversky VN and Brufsky AM (2022) MSH3 Homology and Potential Recombination Link to SARS-CoV-2 Furin Cleavage Site. Front. Virol. 2:834808. doi: 10.3389/fviro.2022.834808
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