Through propaganda and fraud, the CCP under Xi Jinping transformed the snake oil of lockdowns into “science,” the greatest crime of the 21st century to date. This is the story of how he did it, and why. 1/ amazon.com/dp/B09KPJQZWW
This thread is a very brief visual overview of the new book, now available at all Amazon stores. 2/
(The hardcover version’s really cool so I highly recommend that if available in your country and you’re getting as a gift. This is the pre-print). 3/
INTRO
In March 2020, liberal democracy ground to a sudden stop. Like the Reichstag Fire of 1933, historians may never know how SARS-CoV-2 came about. For scientists, exploring its origins would be a rewarding endeavor if it weren’t precluded by the jackboot of Xi’s CCP. 4/
But while intelligence agencies spent months investigating the virus’s origins, the world employed an unprecedented response that proved far more devastating than the virus itself: mass quarantines modeled on those imposed in China, commonly referred to as “lockdowns.” 5/
It was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe since the Second World War. And it was all for nothing. Lockdowns had never been about science. They’d sprung into global policy on the order of the CCP princeling who was now the most influential member of the Baby Boom generation. 7/
CHAPTER I – REDDER THAN READ
Xi Jinping was born in Beijing in 1953. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was notable among Party leaders for his relative moderation. The Dalai Lama later gifted Xi Zhongxun a watch that he kept for the rest of his life. 8/
At home, however, it was another story. Xi Zhongxun was a brutal disciplinarian who would scream, lash out at his wife, and beat Xi Jinping and his siblings. In public, the model statesman; in private, the tyrant. 9/
In 1966, Mao launched his Cultural Revolution, setting radical Red Guards against the Party hierarchy. The stated goal was to purge all vestiges of capitalism and traditional Chinese society, imposing Mao Zedong Thought as China’s dominant ideology. 10/
Xi Jinping and his confidants rarely speak of his experience in the early Cultural Revolution. Xi’s parents were tortured and his father was exiled. Xi’s boarding school was shut and he and his friends were bullied and beaten relentlessly as children of a “black gang.” 11/
In one incident, Xi was paraded onto a stage wearing a heavy metal dunce cap. His mother was forced to attend and shout “Shame on Xi Jinping!” along with the crowd. 12/
Xi’s father was imprisoned in 1968 and Xi was sentenced to juvenile detention, but he avoided this fate when Mao launched the “down to the countryside” movement. Age 15, Xi was sent to live in a cave house in Yan’an. 13/
Xi couldn’t stand farm work and ran away to Beijing, but he was caught and sentenced to a forced labor camp for reeducation. 14/
Xi later returned to Yan’an and this time threw himself into his work. He officially joined the CCP in 1974 after being rejected nine times. In the words of a friend, Xi “chose to survive by becoming Redder than Red.” 15/
The clever young Xi was the model Party man. To the common people, he exemplified patriotic service and family life, while he charmed wide-eyed foreigners with relatable tales of trying to find time for his exercise routine. 16/
In November 2012, Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary of the CCP. Xi was widely expected to be a moderate reformer who would continue leading his country toward openness and global cooperation. Xi Jinping had other plans.17/
CHAPTER II – CHAIRMAN OF EVERYTHING
Xi assumed his role as General Secretary understanding his country to be in danger. Xi had long studied the collapse of the USSR and required his comrades do the same, including the subversion of communism through western values. 18/
In 2013, Xi issued a secret directive known as Document No. 9. According to it, the ideas that threatened China included “independent judiciaries,” “human rights,” “western freedom,” “civil society,” “freedom of the press,” and the “free flow of information on the internet.” 19/
In Xi’s words, “Only socialism can save China, and only socialism can develop China.” Circumstance forces cooperation with the decadent capitalists, but the two systems cannot long co-exist. The Party values the liberal international order, but abhors its liberal values. 20/
Xi became “Chairman of Everything.” He acquired ten titles, assuming control of foreign policy, the internet, the courts, and the secret police. Through his anticorruption campaign, Xi rooted out “tigers and flies”—both high- and low-ranking officials. 21/
Xi revived Maoist demands for conformity, explaining that the media must serve as the Party’s “throat and tongue.” Thousands of churches and mosques across China have been demolished, and images of Christ replaced by images of Xi. 22/
Xi’s war on western values includes surveillance and coercion of dissidents, students, and media outside China. The CCP bribes foreign officials, buys foreign media companies, sponsors foreign protests, and intimidates foreign researchers, activists, and media personalities. 23/
In 2017, Chinese reformer Liu Xiaobo became the second Nobel laureate to ever die in prison, the first being Carl von Ossietzky, who perished in a concentration camp in 1938 after exposing Germany’s clandestine rearmament under then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler. 24/
CHAPTER III – FANGKONG
The embrace between western elites and China began half a century ago when Henry Kissinger argued that relations with the CCP could drive a wedge between China and the USSR. Glasses clinked as China opened for business and the Soviet Union collapsed. 25/
What started as a nibble became an addiction as Kissinger greased access to CCP officials, paving the way for more influence peddlers. Before long, western elites were gorging themselves on Chinese money, and with each dip of their paw their greed only swelled. 26/
Think tanks, research institutions, and elite universities developed an entire business model around the CCP. Whole academic careers could be made or broken by one’s views on China. 27/
Stories that Beijing was stealing scientific and military secrets, running spy networks in Silicon Valley, compromising legislators, and paying huge retainers to professors were downplayed. Signs that the CCP posed a threat in any way were muted and dismissed. 28/
An entire generation of academics, journalists, policymakers, and MBAs had learned to tell the story of a modernizing China. The tendrils of the CCP’s totalitarian system gradually extended into western institutions. 29/
Over decades, the CCP had constructed a multilayered system for stifling dissent based on the Soviet psychological warfare technique of Zersetzung, or “psychological decomposition,” causing individuals to willfully play down evidence before their own eyes. 30/
In 2017, Xi pushed the CCP’s foreign influence into overdrive in an unprecedented campaign unleashing the CCP’s sophisticated apparatus of censorship and propaganda on the world. Their lightning speed allowed the CCP to gain considerable ground without drawing attention. 31/
China’s state media has accounts all over websites blocked in China. Media channels built over time with fluff about Chinese culture and pandas can be activated at key moments to deliver propaganda to enormous audiences. 32/
Some CCP disinformation bots have been found to have over 10,000 followers and to have tweeted in 55 different languages. The CCP’s social media army uses artificial intelligence to generate accounts with pictures of seemingly real, but fictitious people. 33/
In 2021 a brand new Twitter account was instantly verified despite falsely representing itself as a medical doctor. One of the account’s followers was China Daily’s Chief—confirming the CCP’s ability to generate fake, verified Twitter “doctors” without consequence. 34/
The CCP cultivates foreign outlets to produce favorable content and manipulates international search results on platforms like Google. CCP-friendly tech giants provide censorship and surveillance assistance, opening the door to whole new levels of influence. 35/
Media owners and executives enforce censorship by killing stories and dismissing journalists. The CCP uses intermediaries—advertisers, tech companies, governments, and international organizations—to prevent or punish the publication of unfavorable content. 36/
Within China, local officials obstruct foreign correspondents and security forces detain journalists’ family members. The 2018 annual survey of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China yielded “the darkest picture of reporting conditions inside China in recent memory.” 37/
The CCP has shown itself especially adept at silencing China’s minority populations. The way to keep unrest from going viral, the CCP had learned, was to “quarantine” it. 38/
Ever since the CCP’s takeover of Xinjiang, the Party has debated how best to manage the disputed territory. Terrorist attacks in Xinjiang grew worse in the early 2000s. A deadly attack in 2009 killed nearly 200 people in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. 39/
Following his visit to Xinjiang in 2014, Xi laid the groundwork for what would become his signature policy: The detainment, reeducation, and “quarantine” of over one million Uyghur Muslims “infected with extremism” in a system of concentration camps in Xinjiang. 40/
Xi likened Islamic extremism to both a virus and an addictive drug, and declared that addressing it could be done only through “a period of painful interventionary treatment.” “We must be as harsh as them, and show absolutely no mercy.” 41/
A directive on how to handle minority students returning to Xinjiang in 2017 instructs officials to tell the students that their relatives had been “infected” by the “virus” of Islamic radicalism and must be “quarantined” and “cured.” 42/
“Question 4: ‘Why can’t my family come home?’ Answer: ‘Usually, you would…But if you were careless and caught a virus like SARS, you’d have to undergo enclosed, isolated treatment…It’s very hard to eradicate viruses in thinking in a short time.’” 43/
CHAPTER IV – UNRESTRICTED WARFARE
In early 2020, anyone who logged onto social media was greeted with a barrage of videos that alleged to depict scenes of a novel virus plaguing the residents of Wuhan, China. 44/
These sensations captured Wuhan residents in various pantomimes of pandemic horror, terrifying millions of viewers around the world. Some showed their victims foaming at the mouth and collapsing in the streets. Others featured officials in hazmat suits. 45/
For the naturally skeptical, the videos tended to look hysterical and fake. In one, a team of police with the word “SWAT” on their uniforms—in English—caught a man with a butterfly net for removing his mask. 46/
Official Chinese accounts widely shared an image of a hospital wing supposedly constructed in one day, but which actually showed an apartment 600 miles away. 47/
In one of the biggest viral sensations, videos showed Chinese people spontaneously keeling over and dying from the virus in scenes likened to Zombieland and The Walking Dead. 48/
In one notorious clip, the spontaneously dying man throws his arms out to catch himself. 49/
Many dismissed the videos. But at the time these videos appeared, no one outside China knew whether COVID-19 really did cause sudden death. 50/
And even for those who didn’t buy in outright, there was always that nagging voice in their mind: “What if…” That “what if,” embedded into the unconscious mind, was perhaps the most powerful effect of all. 51/
Another viral sensation claimed to show dead COVID-19 victims lining the streets and waiting to be picked up like trash. As one user tweeted about the video: “Wuhan China. Dead Bodies waiting 4 pickup. Coronavirus NO ordinary Virus. Is it intentionally released BIO WEAPON?” 52/
Some of the most influential footage showed authorities welding residents into their homes, both for their own good and—even more—for the good of the world. 53/
Another video featured a woman lying dead in the street and the story was that she had been shot at the border by doctors as she attempted to flee. But like all the others, this was a lie. It was a motor-scooter accident, artfully edited to tell a completely different story. 54/
The Wuhan fear videos were the first of several perfectly-timed events that would provide the rationale for a fearful public to trade away their rights and livelihoods for lockdowns and restrictions—they crafted a powerful narrative and pre-programmed countless minds. 55/
While the Wuhan videos consumed social media, most mainstream viewers had their first encounter with COVID-19 fear propaganda through a story picked up by global media outlets in early February 2020 about a doctor named Li Wenliang. 56/
Li supposedly noticed an unusual incidence of pneumonia and warned his friends that hospital staff were being quarantined, causing panic and anger in Wuhan, for which Li was admonished by local authorities on January 3, 2020. Li Wenliang’s story does not withstand scrutiny. 57/
It remains a mystery why 27 patients experiencing pneumonia in a city of 19 million might be notable. But on Dec 31, 2019, the Wuhan municipal government was so NOT intent on covering up those cases that it made an alarmist public announcement about them on their site. 58/
The very next day, on January 1, 2020, two days before Li’s supposed admonishment, People’s Daily, China’s LARGEST newspaper, picked up the story and reported it in the alarmist fashion—in English: “27 Quarantined in Wuhan Due to Viral Pneumonia.” 59/
In fact, the first time the world ever heard the name “Li Wenliang” was on January 27, 2020—a month after he had allegedly sent his viral messages—when a purported exposé featuring Li was published in one of the CCP’s most venerated propaganda outlets: Beijing Youth Daily. 60/
Image searches for screenshots of Li Wenliang’s famous messages “blowing the whistle” on COVID-19 turn up nothing prior to January 27, a month after they’d supposedly gone viral—but, coincidentally, the same day Beijing Youth Daily first told of Li’s purported existence. 61/
The New York Times first reported on Li Wenliang on Feb 1, 2020, five days after his debut in Beijing Youth Daily. If the Times had done even cursory fact-checking, they’d have realized Li and his “viral” warnings had been invented just days prior by Chinese state media. 62/
Rubber-stamping propaganda from a totalitarian dictatorship would seem to be a serious violation of NYT’s guidelines—though NYT had at least one bureau chief who did so for decades: Walter Duranty, who’d spent years whitewashing Stalin’s atrocities for a global audience. 63/
The story of COVID-19 had begun with a panoply of absurd events and outright lies. This is how lockdowns, having sprung into human consciousness on the order of Xi Jinping, were propagated into global policy with a total absence of precedent, analysis, or logic. 64/
Lockdown proponents frequently justified their policies by comparing them to actions taken during the Spanish flu a century prior. But a cursory examination of those measures reveals that nothing remotely approximating lockdowns was ever imposed. 65/
Not only are lockdowns historically unprecedented in response to any previous epidemic or pandemic in American history, but they are not so much as mentioned in recent guidance offered by the US CDC. 66/
In the words of Federal Judge William Stickman: “It appears as though the imposition of lockdowns in Wuhan and other areas of China…started a domino effect where one country, and state, after another imposed draconian and hitherto untried measures on their citizens.” 67/
Judge Stickman’s intuition regarding the history of lockdowns was in line with the opinion of the foremost infectious disease scholars. As Dr. D.A. Henderson, the man widely credited with eradicating smallpox, wrote in 2006: 68/
In fact, no western scientist had ever publicly supported lockdowns until Xi Jinping personally authorized the “unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and other cities beginning on January 23.” 69/
Xi later affirmed he’d issued these lockdown instructions on January 7, 2020, but his instructions have never been revealed. Chinese business leader Ren Zhiqiang was imprisoned for 18 years for an open letter requesting Xi’s instructions be made public. 70/
Not only are lockdowns historically unprecedented in response to any previous epidemic or pandemic in American history, but they are not so much as mentioned in recent guidance offered by the US CDC. 66/
In the words of Federal Judge William Stickman: “It appears as though the imposition of lockdowns in Wuhan and other areas of China…started a domino effect where one country, and state, after another imposed draconian and hitherto untried measures on their citizens.” 67/
Judge Stickman’s intuition regarding the history of lockdowns was in line with the opinion of the foremost infectious disease scholars. As Dr. D.A. Henderson, the man widely credited with eradicating smallpox, wrote in 2006: 68/
In fact, no western scientist had ever publicly supported lockdowns until Xi Jinping personally authorized the “unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and other cities beginning on January 23.” 69/
Xi later affirmed he’d issued these lockdown instructions on January 7, 2020, but his instructions have never been revealed. Chinese business leader Ren Zhiqiang was imprisoned for 18 years for an open letter requesting Xi’s instructions be made public. 70/
When the lockdown of Wuhan began, the WHO’s representative in China noted that “trying to contain a city of 11 million people is new to science… The lockdown of 11 million people is unprecedented in public health history.” 71/
Human rights observers expressed grave concerns about China’s lockdown: “The shutdown would almost certainly lead to human rights violations and would be patently unconstitutional in the United States.” 72/
But human rights concerns didn’t stop WHO from praising CCP’s “unprecedented” lockdowns just days later, long before they produced any results. “The measures China has taken are good not only for that country but also for the rest of the world.” 73/ https://www.who.int/news/item/30-01-2020-statement-on-the-second-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)
WHO Director Tedros Adhanom added that he was personally “very impressed and encouraged by the president [Xi Jinping]’s detailed knowledge of the outbreak” and the next day praised China for “setting a new standard for outbreak response.” 74/ https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)
But six days in, the lockdown—being “unprecedented in public health history”—had produced no results, so Tedros was actually praising human rights abuses with nothing to show for them. 75/
Soon after, the WHO’s Bruce Aylward told the press: “What China has demonstrated is, you have to do this. If you do it, you can save lives and prevent thousands of cases of what is a very difficult disease.” 76/
Two days later, in an interview for China Central Television, Aylward put it bluntly: “Copy China’s response to COVID-19.” 77/
This is the same Bruce Aylward, who, shortly after telling the world, “What China has demonstrated is, you have to do this,” and “Copy China’s response to COVID-19,” publicly refused to acknowledge Taiwan’s existence. 78/
There are many glaring issues with the WHO’s conclusions. The WHO did not even consider other countries’ economics, demographics, or even their number of COVID cases—which were very few in most of the world—before telling the world: “You have to do this.” 79/
Lockdowns had never been tried or tested before 2020, even on a theoretical basis. Xi had brought “lockdown” into human history; it otherwise never would have entered the collective imagination. Anytime anyone endorsed a lockdown, they were endorsing a Xi Jinping policy. 80/
No one was more outraged by the CCP’s COVID-19 coverup than Xi Jinping. Xi personally saw to it that the local officials in Wuhan were punished for how they’d treated poor Li Wenliang during his tragically short existence. Jan 27 to Feb 7, 2020. May he rest in peace. 81/
But now the world faced a pandemic—and Xi’s “public health” policy was suddenly the world’s go-to response. All the free world was exposed—like so many dominoes. What a shame it would be if someone came along and gave them that one, little *tip.* 82/
CHAPTER V – JUST STAY HOME
In October 2015, Xi Jinping made his only visit to the United Kingdom as General Secretary of the CCP. A busy man, Xi’s trip lasted just four days, and he visited just one university: Imperial College London. 83/
At Imperial, Xi announced “new UK-China education and research collaborations” including “nanotechnology, bioengineering…and public health.” Imperial’s President reiterated that Imperial “strives” to be “China’s best academic partner in the west…” 84/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/168535/in-pictures-president-xi-jinping-imperial/
In February 2020, Imperial College proved just how valuable “China’s best academic partner in the west” could be. An Imperial team led by Neil Ferguson ran a model predicting more than 500,000 in the UK and 2.2 million in the US might die of COVID-19. 85/
Neil Ferguson recalled how China inspired him: “It’s a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe … And then Italy did it. And we realised we could… If China had not done it, the year would have been very different.” 86/ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/people-don-t-agree-with-lockdown-and-try-to-undermine-the-scientists-gnms7mp98
A study compared the accuracy of various institutions’ models predicting COVID-19 mortality. Across all time periods, the models produced by Imperial College were measured to have FAR higher rates of error than the others—ALWAYS too high. 87/ https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.13.20151233v5
Imperial’s inaccuracy continued. Prior to the UK ending COVID restrictions on Jul 19, 2021, “Freedom Day,” Ferguson predicted “100,000 cases a day is almost inevitable.” Instead, cases per day fell dramatically from over 35,000 on July 18 to around 27,000 on July 23. 88/
Just as Neil Ferguson’s models were giving COVID-19 hysteria a veneer of legitimacy, another piece of sophistry by Tomas Pueyo began making the rounds among policymakers, imploring world leaders to implement lockdowns on China’s model. 89/ https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
Pueyo was an MBA with no relevant credentials or prior interest in epidemiology, and there was little to indicate where he’d gotten his ideas. 90/
Pueyo’s article contained many oddities. It implored leaders: “But in 2–4 weeks, when the ENTIRE WORLD is in lockdown.” Yet by March 10, WHO hadn’t declared a pandemic there were hardly any cases in the developing world ex China. 91/
Pueyo’s article went viral at an astonishing pace, gaining 40 million views in 9 days. Reactions were mixed. Many top commenters expressed shock at Pueyo’s lack of qualifications, and accused him of being a “liar and a fraud.” 92/ https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
Undeterred, on March 19, Pueyo posted another Medium article titled “The Hammer and Dance,” which again went viral, explaining the strategy “The Hammer” (lockdowns) followed by “The Dance” (track and trace). 93/ https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
Three days after Pueyo’s “The Hammer and Dance” was published, a strategy paper by the German government (dubbed “the Panic Paper”) was secretly distributed to members of parliament and certain media outlets—playing a large role in Germany’s lockdown. 94/
Despite being published just three days after Pueyo’s article, the German Panic Paper relied heavily on Pueyo’s work, discussing the “Hammer and Dance.” The term “Hammer and Dance” has no history in epidemiology—Tomas Pueyo had invented it for his March 19 article. 95/
One of the Panic Paper’s authors was Otto Kölbl, who had no background in epidemiology or public health, but taught for many years in China and ran a blog in which he’d described Hong Kong as “parasitic” and praised the CCP’s exemplary governance of Tibet. 96/
Another author of the Panic Paper, Maximilian Mayer, also had no epidemiology or health background but spent years working at University of Nottingham in Ningbo China, Tongji University in Shanghai, and Renmin University Beijing. 97/
Later, hundreds of pages of emails containing communications leading up to the Panic Paper were provided to Germany’s independent Corona Committee. In one email, Mayer specifically recommended: “We suggest the motto ‘collectively distanced.’” 98/ https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1358791154330980354.html
Of the 210 pages of emails leading to the German Panic Paper, 118 were blacked out. The emails contained frequent references of China, but nearly all of these are were redacted. The stated reason: “May have adverse effects on international relations.” 99/ https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1358791154330980354.html
At the same time leaders were digesting Ferguson’s models, Pueyo’s articles, and national abominations like the German Panic Paper, the CCP was engaging in a broad, largely-clandestine propaganda campaign to normalize and promote lockdown measures. 100/
In China, the CCP has long paid hundreds of thousands of social media propagandists who post hundreds of millions of comments each year. Xi unleashed these activities globally and they escalated dramatically along with COVID. 101/ https://t.co/4IqI825LZ8
In general, social media companies have only been able to detect obvious automated activity, while fake, personally-managed accounts can be created with ease. This works out nicely for the CCP, who’ve always preferred the human touch. 102/
When Italy became the first country outside China to lock down, Chinese experts arrived on March 12 and two days later began advising tighter lockdowns. 103/
Italy was simultaneously bombarded with Chinese propaganda and disinformation. From March 11 to 23, roughly 46% of tweets with the hashtag #forzaCinaeItalia (Go China, go Italy) and 37% of those with the hashtag #grazieCina (thank you China) came from bots. 104/
Simultaneously, hundreds of thousands of clandestine social media posts—later flagged as state-sponsored—used identical terms to admire China’s lockdowns and urge governments around the world to emulate them, denigrating those who failed to follow. 105/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/technology/china-twitter-disinformation.html
The bots stormed governments including, but not limited to: Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, France, Spain, Colombia, Brazil, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 106/
The bots stormed governments including, but not limited to: Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, France, Spain, Colombia, Brazil, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 106/On March 15, 2020, bots began wildly sharing a YouTube video they called a “message from the future” showing Italians with “a message to themselves from 10 days prior” gaining 8,300,000 views. 107/
As more countries shut down, some activity took a darker turn. When SD Governor Kristi Noem refused to issue a statewide lockdown, her Twitter feed was filled abuse to pressure her to do so. Some of these accounts would hurl similar abuse at governors across the country. 108/
In this example, a model CCP account shows strong support for China’s policies and abuses—including in Xinjiang and Hong Kong—and antipathy for China’s key rivals, India and the US. The account strongly supported lockdowns all over the world. 109/
The online abuse of anti-lockdown leaders continued for some time. When Brian Kemp, the first U.S. governor to end his state’s lockdown, honored late Representative John Lewis, his Twitter feed was stormed in conspicuous language that often attacked his anti-lockdown stance. 110/
Simultaneously, Chinese state media began describing “herd immunity” as a strategy violating “human rights”: 111/
Sweden, whose leaders were unique in forgoing lockdowns, became a primary target of the CCP’s lockdown propaganda campaign. 112/
Meanwhile, the scientific foundations for lockdowns were being laid. Underpinning lockdown was “asymptomatic spread”—the sole basis for restricting healthy people—believed to be a novel feature of COVID based on studies from China. As WHO wrote:
113/
In March 2020, WHO released guidance recommending mechanical ventilators to treat COVID patients, citing Chinese journal articles claiming “Chinese expert consensus” called for “invasive mechanical ventilation” as the “first choice”—in part to protect staff from “aerosols.” 114/
Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell acted as an early whistleblower in a widely-shared video. The WHO and China’s early ventilator guidance had killed thousands of innocent patients. A study later showed a 97.2% mortality rate among those over age 65 who received mechanical ventilation. 115/
In a matter of weeks, the world had dismissed a century of epidemiological research and adopted the model of the CCP. South Australia’s Chief Health Officer recalled how the WHO’s Bruce Aylward urged her into this course of action:
116/
In the UK Government’s official Coronavirus Action Plan from March 3, 2020, discussing social distancing, school closures, and rapid COVID test and vaccine development, nearly every source the Government cited was from China. 117/
All the measures outlined in New Zealand’s official COVID-19 Elimination Strategy document—“physical distancing” “widespread testing” “surveillance”—were adopted from China based on the reported success of the CCP’s Wuhan lockdown. 118/
Days after its “Panic Paper,” the German government published a “catalog of measures” from “experts” at “University of Nottingham Ningbo China,” recommending lockdowns, testing, and quarantine centers—and what would soon be a global COVID propaganda slogan: “Together apart.” 119/
CHAPTER VI – EVERYTHING IS FAKE
In March 2020, following WHO, labs across the world began mass PCR testing for COVID—another departure from previous guidance. Kölbl and Mayer, the Sinophiles behind Germany’s Panic Paper, also called for PCR testing in “Learning from Wuhan.” 120/
The WHO’s testing guidance contained only three studies discussing PCR cycle thresholds. All were from China, and all used cycle thresholds from 37 to 40—a standard adopted in the US and many other countries—pursuant to which 90% of positive tests were false, per NYT. 121/
Anthony Fauci agreed that a Ct of 35 or more is not a real positive. Based on guidance issued by WHO, citing three studies from China, labs across the US and many other countries have been using cycle thresholds for PCR tests that inflate COVID case counts ten-fold. 122/
PCR technology was invented in 1983 by American biochemist Kary Mullis to let scientists to study tiny samples of DNA in detail. For this, he won the Nobel prize. At a panel discussing PCR in 1993, Mullis stated quite plainly that PCR should not be used to diagnose illness. 123/
In a 1996 interview Mullis had choice words for Anthony Fauci, then head of the US response to AIDS—especially Fauci’s misuse of PCR. Set the Ct high enough and PCR can pick up any amount of viral matter and yield endless “cases”—a permanent pandemic. 124/
While much of the CCP’s pro-lockdown influence was surreptitious, its overall stance in support of global lockdowns was explicit. In a video posted by China’s official foreign spokesperson, a 7-year-old girl recites a script on obeying lockdown rules. 125/
FBI Director Christopher Wray disclosed that the CCP had specifically approached local politicians to endorse its pandemic response. “Yes, this is happening at both the federal and state levels.” 126/
The overarching lie hammered by the CCP into elite discourse was: “China controlled the virus.” Of course, “China controlled the virus” was a boldfaced lie. But by reinforcing that lie in high society, the CCP ensured its fake data remained paramount in scientific discourse. 127/
Lockdown propaganda relied on two key principles inherent to virtually all official communications on COVID-19. The first was that China’s measures were the only ones proven “effective.” The second was that fear was necessary to ensure compliance for lockdowns to succeed. 128/
Through fear, the perception of much of the population would detach from any real data. Though COVID’s average IFR for those under 40 is under 0.01%, Americans under 40 consistently estimated their chance of dying if they got it to be around 10%, a 1,000-fold overestimation. 129/
Likewise, in 2021, the UK Government revised its official estimate for COVID’s IFR to below 0.1%. But in polls, Australians on average estimated their chance of dying if they contracted the virus to be 38%—hundreds of times higher than it really was. 130/
The CCP was abetted at virtually every stage of its lockdown fraud by a global media apparatus that reliably toed its lines—aligning almost perfectly with the CCP’s goals. Articles from March 10, 2020, illustrate how elite media outlets adopted China’s narrative in unison. 131/
The snowball effect of this little lie—China controlled the virus—was soon apparent in journalists’ own writing. Within months, they’d been transformed into foaming-at-the-mouth communists, dripping with illiberalism as they implored the world to emulate China. 132/
Millions surely suspected the lockdown fraud, but among those who believed China’s COVID-19 narrative—or pretended to—all the authoritarian methods that supposedly contributed to China’s “success”—including censoring, canceling, and firing dissenters—were on the table. 133/
The media soon developed its own set of twisted journalistic norms. Channeling Walter Duranty’s infamous defense of Stalin, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs,” all the unimaginable harms of lockdowns were attribued, absurdly, to “pandemic disruptions.” 134/
Politicians, scientists, journalists, and common professionals of all stripes became comfortable repeating big, deadly lies about the world’s response to COVID-19. The Soviet Union had tried to beat the west; Xi Jinping had simply bought it. 135/
CHAPTER VII – THE WORLD ACCORDING TO XI
“For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill; to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” – General Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Spring and Autumn Period 136/
In the early 13th century, a nomadic chieftain led a band of 6,000 warriors to China’s northern border. Baffled, the Jin Emperor sent a dispatch to the chieftain:
“Our Empire is as vast as the sea. Yours is but a handful of sand. What have we to fear of you?”
137/
Even if the warriors survived the impassable Gobi Desert, they faced legions of mercenaries in Heilongjiang. 138/
Even if the warriors defeated Heilongjiang’s mercenaries, they’d be stopped by the forests of Jilin, where the trees stood as tall as mountains. And even if they passed Jilin’s forests, they’d be stuck in the muddy silk fields of Liaoning. 139/
But Temüjin was no ordinary chieftain, and in 1213 AD he laid siege to Beijing. Though he’d begun vastly outnumbered, the scores of mercenaries he’d co-opted in Heilongjiang evened the odds. 140/
Though Beijing was fortified by stone walls, the wood from Jilin made for excellent ladders and rams. Though Jin archers filled the sky with arrows, the warriors’ armor was fortified with silk from Liaoning, trapping the arrows before they met flesh. 141/
This was the end of the Jin empire; and only the first of many such upsets by Genghis Khan. 142/
It was one of the great military catastrophes of all time, and a lesson China’s strategists would never forget. To underestimate one opponent—a single intelligence failure—can be the downfall of even the greatest empires. 143/
The CCP’s lockdown operation appears to have had its philosophical origins in the book Unrestricted Warfare, magnum opus of China’s most influential modern strategists. In Unrestricted Warfare, the authors reimagine warfare for the 21st century. 144/
In Unrestricted Warfare, the authors foresee a pivot away from heavy machinery to attacks on the mind. “Some morning people will awake to discover with surprise that quite a few gentle and kind things have begun to have offensive and lethal characteristics.” 145/
In Oct 2019, two months before the SARS-CoV-2 virus was revealed in Wuhan, the Gates Foundation, WEF, Bloomberg, and J Hopkins hosted Event 201—a pandemic simulation. Each organization had close ties to China, and each played a major role in the world’s response to COVID-19. 146/
It’s unlikely that many participants at Event 201 realized a coronavirus was sweeping across Asia at the time. But the CCP may well have manipulated its COVID data to trigger the apocalyptic responses planned by the China-friendly organizations at Event 201. 147/
Event 201 delegates included George Gao, director of China’s CDC, who oversaw the original article on COVID-19 symptoms. Participants discussed controlling “misinformation” in a coronavirus pandemic, and Gao even raised the point of countering rumors the virus was man-made. 148/
Each participant at Event 201 was even gifted a one-of-a-kind Event 201 coronavirus plush (made in China). 149/
From the very start, the COVID narrative overtly suggested a bioweapon. Whistleblowers; residents collapsing; lockdown; novel virus; all science tossed out. But it was all a lie. Reverse psychology. This was how the CCP convinced the world an ordinary virus was a supervirus. 150/
There was abundant evidence SARS-CoV-2 had begun spreading much earlier than December 2019. A widely-published report revealed that orders for PCR tests had soared in China beginning in May 2019, a full seven months before China had reported its first coronavirus case. 151/
It may seem strange that intelligence officials failed to see the clear signs that the CCP was promoting lockdowns and fear of COVID-19. But as Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan made clear, national security officials can take many years to admit an embarrassing mistake. 152/
Furthermore, the lab investigation was only necessary because the CCP refused to reveal what they knew about COVID-19. This could be added to their already-long list of unforgivable crimes—all of which were happening in plain sight. That, itself, was a psychological game. 153/
No one was more concerned about what transpired at the Wuhan lab than Xi Jinping. Now, out of an abundance of caution, the west would have to stay shut down. For years, if possible. Forever? Just as good. After all, there was so much about this virus we didn’t know. 154/
CHAPTER VIII – TOGETHER APART
“Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next… But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.” – Milton Mayer, 1955
155/
Xi Jinping would never forget the day he met Bill Gates. It was May 2012, during Gates’s visit to Beijing. Gates was a longtime Sinophile, and he and Xi met twice more in 2013 and 2015, each time seeking deeper scientific collaboration. 156/
Xi and Gates met again during Xi’s 2015 trip to Seattle, where Xi announced new collaborations with the University of Washington, second-most influential COVID modeler. Bill invited Xi for dinner, but had to cancel when Xi didn’t show up. They were married men, after all. 157/
Gates’ global influence pushed many institutions in a pro-lockdown direction. When COVID broke out, Gates sent tens of millions of dollars to the CCP to assist with China’s response, for which Xi wrote him a personal thank you. Xi would make sure that money went to good use. 158/
Gates expressed exasperation with the west in contrast to China. Gates blamed western “freedom”; China, by contrast, he said, “did a very good job of suppressing the virus,” thanks to the “typical, fairly authoritarian” approach and “individual rights that were violated.” 159/
In Aug 2021, Gates called for “all countries” to be “more like Australia”; parts of Australia were then at 200 days in strict lockdown with COVID cases at all-time highs. Gates went on: “Flu and common cold…we can build tools that, over time, can get rid of those as well.” 160/
We may never know just how many westerners supported the CCP’s COVID-19 narrative because of their relationships with China. But the fact that the pandemic guidelines of the WHO and nearly every developed nation were discarded suggests that the corruption ran very deep. 161/
Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet and lead advisor to the UK, said the world should thank China for lockdown: “It was not only the right thing to do, but it also showed other countries how they should respond…So, I think we have a great deal to thank China for.” 162/
Susan Michie, lead UK SAGE advisor and 40-year British Communist Party member, expressed outrage when asked whether this might inform her draconian policies: “I’ve come on your program as a scientist…” Michie was a behavioral scientist with no background in epidemiology. 163/
Leana Wen, one of the most influential voices in the US COVID response, became famous for advocacy of coercive vaccination measures. A WEF Young Leader, Wen was granted asylum from the CCP to live in the US—but somehow that didn’t stop her from returning to work in China. 164/
Eric Feigl-Ding, another WEF Young Leader, took the COVID con to a whole other level with his wildly-inaccurate pro-lockdown tweets, leading to interviews with CNN and NYT despite his nonexistent qualifications and being denounced as a “charlatan” by scientists on all sides. 165/
Of course, no one toed the CCP’s COVID lines more reliably than Anthony Fauci, who shut down America on nothing but the WHO and NYT’s endorsement of Wuhan’s lockdown, then advocated one totalitarian mandate after another—all of which he’d said were useless in February 2020. 166/
When life for many Americans halted, many flocked to Florida. Gov DeSantis became the first major leader to share his belief the CCP influenced lockdowns: “China was very much invested in promoting lockdowns…until COVID, public health guidance was never…to just lock down.” 167/
No one described lockdown madness with grander eloquence than former UK Supreme Ct Justice Lord Sumption: “We have moral reasons…for not wishing to be like China…now…what began as a public health crisis is…an educational crisis…and social crisis on top of that.” 168/
Of course, every COVID-19 mandate was per se unconstitutional. The initial lockdowns had been intended as a psychological blitz that shocked and overwhelmed normal legal and ethical processes. And the world’s high courts largely stepped aside and let it all happen. 169/
In the US, the Supreme Court used Jacobson v. Mass, a 1905 case in which a man was fined $5 for refusing a vaccine, to justify all COVID mandates. A man of principle, Mr. Jacobson had taken his case all the way to Washington—he shelled out the five bucks and went on his way. 170/
There are many problems with the Supreme Court’s use of Jacobson v. Mass to justify COVID mandates. First, Jacobson had been overruled many times, not least because it was used to justify eugenics in Buck v. Bell—a decision then cited by Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg trials. 171/
Second, the Supreme Court’s justification for COVID mandates depended on a specific word: “pandemic.” By 2021, lobbyists and the WHO weren’t even pretending they ever intended the “pandemic” to end. “Delta to Lambda…on to the other Greek letters.” 172/
In Oct 2021, Spain’s Minister of Health announced mask mandates would be kept in place for as long as there was still a seasonal flu:
“The masks are here to stay, at least as long we have influenza or other autumn viruses.” notiulti.com/las-mascaras-l… 173/
For two years, the world watched its political class play dumb about how they’d imported a totalitarian “public health” regime from China. Germany even produced a study on implementing a “social credit system like in China.”
web.archive.org/web/2021062918… 174/
At the 2021 G7 opening, leaders made a show of masking, forgoing handshakes, and distancing—but the next day posed unmasked in tight groups. The message: “We know you know we’re lying about COVID. To be one of us, you need to keep lying as well.” 175/
Journalist Gerhard Wisnewski characterized the governments’ policies as a series of “completely nonsensical and contradictory measures.” “There is a method behind this madness. It is actually a method of torture…and interestingly enough, they were developed in China.” 176/
In April 2021, the Chinese began downplaying their own vaccine. Just days later, first the WHO, then Fauci, Boris Johnson, and Justin Trudeau followed, dramatically downplaying the effectiveness of vaccines and calling for more lockdown measures. apnews.com/article/china-… 177/
Early on, China had rolled out a digital COVID pass system using color codes for vaccination status. Sure enough, the system entertained by the Biden administration’s COVID team a year later used this same color code system. 178/
In the US, the proposal at the federal level was widely seen as a political trial balloon by lobbyists and scrapped. But Europe wasn’t so lucky. In June 2021, the EU Parliament approved digital COVID vaccine passports for travel within the European Union. 179/
For all their inhumanity, it’s unclear that vaccine mandates increased uptake. In Italy, the number choosing to vaccinate declined. Many citizens refused to get vaccines as long as governments tied them to civil liberties. reuters.com/world/europe/i… 180/
In cities all across Europe, Australia, and Canada, protesters took to the streets in the tens of thousands to protest against lockdowns, vaccine passes, and other vestiges of CCP-style medical tyranny. 181/
Following Emanuel Macron’s announcement that a health pass would be required in all “bars, restaurants, amusement parks, shopping centers, trains, coaches and planes,” hundreds of thousands took to the streets across France for several months. 182/
Police brutality flared as law-enforcement personnel faced protesters angry at the suspension of human rights through policies justified only by the exaggerated fears the policies themselves sowed, and which therefore had no endpoint. 183/
In 2021, as cases rose to all-time highs in Australia despite some of the world’s strictest lockdowns, the military was deployed and police imprisoned and fired rubber bullets at protesters, including at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. 184/
From the beginning, moderates had rationalized their silence about the unprecedented suspension of civil liberties on the basis that COVID lockdown measures were temporary, and if the policies crossed some unspecified line they would speak up. To some degree, that did occur. 185/
But it was too late. As is their perennial error, western moderates failed to recognize the ethical, scientific, and legal indefensibility of the pro-lockdown position. The ultimate red line was crossed in March 2020. Catastrophic and irreparable damage could not be undone. 186/
Since the original egalitarian propaganda of communism no longer fooled most people, the system had to be rebooted with a new lie that would justify the indefinite suspension of the rule of law. Xi had found it in the form of a “virus.” 187/
CHAPTER IX – THE YEAR OF THE RAT
“ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
/End of overview
This thread is just a small fraction of the info contained in the book. Chapter IX is the best part—I won’t ruin the ending here.
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P.S. Don’t miss the official documentary preview for the book based on the first chapter: Redder than Red, narrated by @katewand.