JUDY WOODRUFF: That party
Congress in Beijing where the
Hong Kong proposal was made had
been postponed from March, as
China battled the coronavirus.
The Trump administration has
highlighted the possibility
that COVID-19 was accidentally
released from a Chinese lab
by Chinese scientists. That
accusation is unproven.
But, as Nick Schifrin
reports, questions of
science have challenged
U.S.-China collaboration
and given way to
increased confrontation.
NICK SCHIFRIN: It feels like
a descent into the heart of
darkness, Chinese virus hunters
in Wuhan looking for
coronaviruses in bats in a video
posted as the pandemic began.
Scientist Tian Junhua
acknowledges in narration,
there are serious risks.
TIAN JUNHUA, Virus Hunter
(through translator):
Because when you find
the viruses, you are
also most easily
exposed to the viruses.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Tian says
he hunts for viruses
to create vaccines,
before viruses can hunt
people. And the promotional
video ends with a brag, how
many viruses Chinese scientists
have discovered.
It may seem shocking, but it's
normal work for virus hunters
the world over. And Chinese
scientists have been
trained by the West.
PETER DASZAK, President,
EcoHealth Alliance:
We're working in caves
across Southern China
to found out where the risk
is highest and who is at most
risk of this new disease.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Peter
Daszak is the head of
New York-based EcoHealth
Alliance, which received
Bush, Obama, and Trump
administration funding
to research in China.
"PBS NewsHour" filmed him five
years ago with our partner
Global Health Frontiers, as he
tried to improve defenses to
viruses that jump from animals
to humans, like SARS-CoV-2,
the virus that causes COVID-19.
PETER DASZAK: And what we're
trying to do is to say, what's
the next one coming along,
and can we stop it before
it evolves into a very
lethal human pathogen?
NICK SCHIFRIN: To that work,
Tian works in a Wuhan lab
and received one of the first
live samples of
SARS-CoV-2 on December 26.
He and Chinese colleagues
wrote one of the first papers
about a COVID-19 patient. In
fact, in the last weeks
of December, teams of
Chinese scientists collect
dozens of SARS-CoV-2
strains to share online. And
Chinese scientists submitted
the first full genome after just
two weeks of work.
That's incredibly fast, a sign
of how far Chinese scientists
have come, says Gregory
Gray, an infectious disease
epidemiologist who's worked
with Chinese scientists since
2011.
DR. GREGORY GRAY, Infectious
Disease Epidemiologist:
The majority of
scientists I work with are
excellent and often very
much Western-trained
and Western-thinking.
They value truth.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But the
Chinese government put a
brake on that truth-telling.
On January 1, Wuhan Institute
of Virology's director general,
Yanyi Wang, messaged her
colleagues, saying the National
Health Commission told her the
lab's COVID-19 data shall not
be published on social
media and shall not be
disclosed to the media.
And on January 3, the commission
sent this document, never
posted online, but saved by
researchers, telling
labs to destroy COVID-19
samples or send them to
the depository institutions
designated by the state.
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo has repeatedly
called that a cover-up.
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. Secretary
of State: The party chose to
destroy live virus samples,
instead of sharing them or
asking us to help secure them.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Last Friday, the
Chinese government admitted to
the destruction, but said it was
for public safety.
LIU DENGFENG, Chinese
National Health Commission
(through translator):
We released a guideline
on January 3, aiming to
prevent biohazards of
labs and the occurrence
of secondary disasters
caused by unknown virus.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Those secondary
disasters have occurred before.
The World Health Organization
says, in 2004, the virus that
caused the previous year's SARS
epidemic accidentally got out
of a Beijing lab, where it was
being analyzed by scientists,
causing small, brief outbreaks.
Scientists believe a
1977 influenza epidemic
spread after a Russian
lab accident. And leaks
have even happened in the U.S.
WOMAN: We learned today
that about 75 government
scientists may have been
exposed to live anthrax
bacteria.
NICK SCHIFRIN: The Trump
administration has repeatedly
raised the possibility of a lab
accident sparking the
COVID-19 pandemic.
MIKE POMPEO: There's
enormous evidence that's
that where this began.
NICK SCHIFRIN: National
Security Adviser Robert
O'Brien added a crucial caveat.
ROBERT O'BRIEN, U.S. National
Security Adviser: Look, there's
certainly the potential it came
from the laboratory.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Some scientists
we interviewed agree the
potential exists and worry about
lab security.
TIM TREVAN, Biological
Safety Expert: There's
still this culture of
compliance, rather than
a culture of safety.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Tim Trevan is
a biological safety expert. He
questions whether the Chinese
government would
allow scientists to
point out mistakes.
TIM TREVAN: If you have
a society where it's
extremely hierarchical,
and people don't question
their superiors, and, if,
on top of that, you have a
political system that disappears
whistle-blowers, then it's a
very difficult starting point
to have a learning organization
where everyone feels safe to
speak up when they see things
which aren't going right.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But Trevan and
other scientists say there is
no evidence of a lab leak. And
over the last few decades,
the Chinese have dramatically
improved their facilities.
DR. GREGORY GRAY: There's a
lot of scrutiny now. There's
video cameras monitoring who
does what. Often, they have
rules like we do, where a
junior person will have to be
partnered with senior personnel.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But the Chinese
government has admitted it
needs to strengthen biosecurity.
WOMAN: Chinese President
Xi Jinping says epidemic
prevention and control
systems must be strengthened.
NICK SCHIFRIN: In February, Xi
Jinping announced new biosafety
rules. The pro-Communist Party
tabloid Global Times wrote that
labs faced chronic inadequate
management issues, though
denied this had anything
to do with COVID-19.
But at the Wuhan Institute
of Virology, at the center of
many U.S. accusations, Deputy
Director Yuan Zhiming wrote
a paper about China's lab
security last year that admits:
"Most laboratories lack
specialized biosafety
managers and engineers.
This makes it difficult
to identify and mitigate
potential safety hazards."
The U.S. argues, the
Chinese government must
allow Chinese scientists
to voice those concerns
as a matter of life and
death, as Deputy National
Security Adviser Matt
Pottinger put it, quoting
a famous Chinese
writer in mandarin.
"Those with the fortitude to
seek and speak the truth in
China today may take comfort
in something Lu Xun
wrote: Lies written in
ink can never disguise
facts written in blood."
For Xi Jinping, today's meeting
is designed to project and
ensure national unity. He has
centralized authority.
And that's affected
even the scientists.
DR. GREGORY GRAY: Some
of our best collaborators
come from Beijing and
from one of the leading
military epidemiological
institutions there.
And in the last few years,
there's been more scrutiny with
respect to me going, visiting
them in their facilities. Their
availability has been somewhat
reduced. And so I attribute
it to sort of a consolidation
of power of Xi Jinping.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But it goes both
ways. The Trump administration
ended Peter Daszak's
grant to work with
Chinese scientists.
Collaboration is eroding,
as the two countries
increase confrontation.
For the "PBS NewsHour,"
I'm Nick Schifrin.