China accuses the US of developing weapons targeting the Chinese race

A Chinese spokesperson said that the weapon plan was revealed by US media. But in reality, it’s likely from a state media article from 20 years ago with questionable credibility.

A spokesperson at China’s foreign ministry made an outrageous claim on Wednesday that the Pentagon has been developing genetically engineered weapons targeting populations of various races, including “Asian Chinese, European Aryans and Middle Eastern Arabs”.

Wang Wenbin, the spokesperson, said that the plan has been revealed by the Wall Street Journal. Here is what he said:

The US widely collects and uses genomic information. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon has formulated R&D plans for hitting opponents with genetically engineered weapons. Those involved disclosed that the genomic data of Asian Chinese, European Aryans and Middle Eastern Arabs are all being collected by the US military. According to the website of Russia-based RT, the US Air Education and Training Command (AETC) once issued a tender seeking to acquire samples of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and synovial fluid from Russians. It’s pretty clear who exactly is using genomic information for secret purposes.

美国是广泛搜集并运用基因信息的国家。据《华尔街日报》披露，美国五角大楼已经制定了以基因武器打击对手的研发计划。参与者称，亚洲华人、欧洲雅利安人、中东阿拉伯人的基因都被列入美军搜集范围。据“今日俄罗斯电视台”网站报道称，美国空军教育训练司令部曾发布招募信息，特别指明需要获取俄罗斯人的核糖核酸和滑膜液样本。究竟谁在利用基因从事不可告人的活动，相信大家都心如明镜。

Wang was responding to a speech made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Freedom House earlier this week, in which he expressed worries over how DNA data have been reportedly used to surveil Uyghurs and Tibetans in China:

Access to human genomic data opens up a whole other set of human rights concerns. Advances in biotechnology have enabled genomic surveillance based on a person’s DNA, potentially facilitating abuses.  And we’ve seen some of those, for example, committed by the People’s Republic of China against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.  We’re also concerned by reports of the spread of mass DNA collection to Tibet as an additional form of control and surveillance over the Tibetan population.

Multiple research groups have published reports over the past few years on what Blinken was talking about, including Canada’s Citizen Lab and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

But I had difficulties figuring out what Wang’s statement was based on. After searching in the Wall Street Journal’s archive using different keyword combinations, I couldn’t locate any articles that even remotely resemble what Wang was referring to.

However, when I based my search on what Wang said in Chinese, I did find a Chinese state media interview with Chinese activist Tong Zeng (童增) from 20 years ago that’s almost verbatim.

In this China Youth Daily article, the reporter wrote:

In the 1990s, with breakthroughs in genetic research, the US military was gradually pivoting toward the goal of real life combat with its genetic research programs. The Wall Street Journal of the US, citing participants, reported that the genes of Chinese of China, European Aryans and Middle Eastern Arabs were all within the scope of the US military’s collecting efforts.

20世纪90年代，随着基因研究的突破，美国军方的基因研究项目越来越向实战的目标迈进。为了确保美国未来的霸主地位，美国军方制定了以基因武器为秘密武器打击敌方的计划。美国《华尔街日报》根据参与者的透露报道说，中国的华人、欧洲的雅利安人、中东的阿拉伯人的基因，均属于美军的搜集范围。

The entire article was based on an interview with Tong, who at the time claimed that the SARS outbreak in China and Asia was likely caused by US genetically engineered weapons since most patients were of Chinese descent.

The reporter didn’t clearly contribute to Tong the claim about Pentagon collecting genetic data all over the world and that the WSJ had reported on it. But in a 2020 article authored by Tong, he made a very similar claim, although he didn’t mention the Pentagon nor the WSJ.

In the article that was published by China News in both English and Chinese, Tong wrote:

In the 1990’s, when the concept of human genetic resources was not yet clear to people all over the world, the United States started massive global collections and research of human DNA in Asia, Africa and Europe. It was called the epoch-making Human Genome Project.

According to National Institutes of Health, the Human Genome Project was “a large, well-organized, and highly collaborative international effort that generated the first sequence of the human genome and that of several additional well-studied organisms.”

The project started in 1990 and ended in 2003. Participating countries included the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan and China.

In fact, Chinese state media wrote positively about the country’s contributions to the project. An article reposted by multiple state media outlets in 2021 wrote:

Twenty years ago, our country satisfactorily completed the undertaking of the 1% of mission of the ‘Human Genome Project’. By taking part in this global scientific mission that was praised as the ‘Moon landing Mission’ of bioscience, Chinese scientists took China’s genome research from chasing others to running side by side to eventually becoming one of the best in the world.

20年前，我国圆满完成了承担的“人类基因组计划”1%的任务。中国科学家通过参与这一被誉为生命科学“登月计划”的国际大科学计划，带动了中国基因组学研究从追赶到并跑，从而跻身世界前列。

As an activist, Tong for decades has been calling for compensations from Japan for the atrocities it caused to the Chinese people during the second World War. According to Chinese media, Tong was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize consecutively from 2015 to 2019.

In the 2020 article, Tong tried to link the Covid-19 pandemic to US laboratories, which echoed the conspiracy theory that some Chinese diplomats were promoting at the time that the virus was originally made by the US military.

He wrote:

During the pandemic of COVID-19, I have sent several emails to the United Nations Secretary General and the World Health Organization (WHO), hoping that for the sake of the security of mankind the United Nations will lead thorough inspections of biological, viral and genetic laboratories all over the world after the pandemic has subsided.

I believe that the United States are very advanced in research and development of biological virus genes, with the largest achievements and the largest number of patent applications in the world. If the United States take the lead in opening their own laboratories for inspections, especially the Fort Detrick laboratory in Maryland, which was shut down in August last year, and allow a team of United Nation’s experts to inspect it publicly, it will be a major contribution to the inspections of laboratories around the world and for the future security of mankind.

Feature picture credit: AP