Just as the Soviets were incapable of admitting errors of any kind during the 1920s and 1930s, so are their progeny, the Communist Chinese, unable to come clean on the Wuhan virus. The Chinese knew about the virus in November 2019 yet did nothing to stop its spread and indeed did not inform the world of the problem until forced to by the world community as the virus spread to other countries.

The virus originated in Wuhan province. Whether it was engineered or a mutation of an existing virus remains unknown, but surely it is not coincidental that the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is where China’s only level four biosafety laboratory is located, and which studies some of the world’s deadliest viruses, is located just 20 miles from the center of the original outbreak, according to some sources.

China is a closed society, and the ChiComs tightly control information, particularly anything that may be damaging or embarrassing to the regime. They have also invested millions of dollars in Western media over the past two decades in order to influence and suppress negative information about Communist China. It is relatively easy to spot the pro-Chinese media who are trying to shift the blame to the US for the virus.

Laura Ingraham (Fox News) interviewed Steve Mosher, author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order, and Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, on Tuesday night about this very topic. Here is what they said:

Ingraham: Although the coronavirus started in Wuhan province, China, according to China you can’t call it the Wuhan virus because “that’s racist.” The Left is more obsessed with fact-checking Trump than addressing the lies of the Chinese here. What gives? And is this China’s dividend from sprinkling so much money around the United States and holding these lavish conferences for journalists over the years, etc., etc. Mosher: First of all, this is the Wuhan virus. I prefer to call it the Chinese coronavirus, and actually the full title is the Chinese Communist Party’s coronavirus because let’s follow the bread crumbs. Back in November, there were the first cases of the coronavirus in the city of Wuhan. By December, the National Health Commission of the government of China had sent a commission down to investigate this new strain of pneumonia. They knew they had problems. On January 1st, they closed down all the military bases in and around Wuhan. They didn’t tell the people of China; they didn’t tell the world, but they closed down the military bases … the police force was protected, the military was protected from the virus. Then several million Chinese left the center of the epidemic, went throughout China, throughout the world, spreading the virus everywhere. Only after the horse had left the barn did they close the barn door. So everybody who is a victim of the coronavirus … everybody who dies as a result of the coronavirus is a victim of the Chinese Communist Party. One more thing as an American that really gets my goat … and this is that the Chinese Communist Party is now whispering that the cause … the original source of the coronavirus was the United States of America. [Supposedly,] we sent it over with the military athletes who participated in the military games from October 17th through 20th in Wuhan. That’s the story that they’re currently spreading. Ingraham: This is par for the course, is it not? In almost every dealing we’ve had with the CCP. VDH: It is. And remember that they knew about this virus in December and January, and they allowed 15,000 and more of their own citizens to fly on direct flights to the United States. So we have 60 days of a million people coming in from China, many of whom were probably exposed to the virus until Trump leveled the travel ban. It’s pretty miraculous given what China did that we’ve only had one out of 10 million Americans die, and one out of every 500,000 be infected. It really shows you that this virus is a very strange virus. As a historian, you know we’re going to have tests, and more cases are going to show, but I think a lot of it is going to show that people are still shedding the virus that got over it, and we’re in a more static than a dynamic situation, and the situation is six weeks after the travel ban … if you look at the origins of this whole problem, it’s China. China let people come into this country knowing that they might be exposing Americans and didn’t care. Ingraham: Now we’re seeing all these articles pop up in Bloomberg and other media outlets saying, “Well, look at the number of infected people every day is lower and lower because of China’s great handling of this virus. So now they created it, and we’re supposed to laud their handling of it. Are you kidding me? Mosher: The Chinese Communist Party is celebrating its success at quarantining 150 million people, killing many of them and infecting many more with an ineffective approach to containing the virus. And now they’re claiming credit for it. But they always turn truth on its head. They are one-trick ponies.

End of the Q&A. A suspicious soul might wonder whether the Chinese blithely spread the virus around the world, cynically calculating that the deaths of a few million Chinese would be a small price to pay if the virus could lead to severe consequences for the US and President Trump.

Will the Chinese ever come clean? President Trump offered US technical and health service expertise to the Chinese early on in the crisis, but the Chinese refused. That is of a piece with their penchant for not admitting problems and unwillingness to accept outside assistance, which would likely expose a worse situation in Wuhan province and elsewhere than the ChiComs have conveyed up to this point.

It is not surprising at all that two of the hotspots for the virus around the world are Iran and Italy. Iran and China have been involved in oil trade in violation of sanctions continuously over the past year. It’s no wonder that Iran has a large number of cases. Italy, for its part, has been the European hub for China’s Maritime Silk Road strategy associated with it’s One Belt One Road initiative. The number of infected Chinese transiting to and from Italy over the past several months is unknown but certainly large.

China needs to openly divulge everything then know about the virus in order for lives around the world to be saved.

The end.

Stu Cvrk served 30 years in the US Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. An oceanographer and systems analyst through education and experience, Stu is a graduate of the US Naval Academy where he received a classical liberal education which serves as the key foundation for his political commentary. He threads daily on Twitter on a wide range of political, military, foreign policy, government, economics, and world affairs topics. Read more by Stu Cvrk