China had a busy diplomatic week in EU
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SMOKE SIGNALS
Stoked by leaks from spookdom and growing circumstantial evidence, once-sceptical scientists and journalists are taking another look at the theory that the Covid-19 virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan. The case is still wide open — President Biden has ordered US intelligence to come up with an answer in 90 days.
But already there should be red faces. Facebook wrongly applied fact-check warnings to discussion of the lab-leak hypothesis. The British medical journal the Lancet in 2020 published an open letter denouncing it as a conspiracy theory; its editor Richard Horton wrote a piece decrying Sinophobia and arguing:
"The world owes Chinese and Hong Kong scientists a debt of gratitude for their carefully calibrated warnings. But today's global narrative is exactly opposite to that judgment."
The Lancet loudly bangs other political drums, such as on the “ongoing torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange”. We asked for examples of pieces similarly critical of Beijing. A spokeswoman tells us the paper has been “clear” that China has “legitimate questions to answer” about Covid and other issues.