I am really interested in the social-political dimension of this. Was the initial hypothesis of a lab leak suppressed during the initial part of the pandemic primarily due to Western government's fear of a diplomatic breakdown (like Russia) with China? The economies are far more interdependent than compared to Russia and there is a far more economically important Chinese diaspora in the West.
What would it take to get a honest investigation within China? Presumably not under the current regime - if it were true, the magnitude of the disaster would be 100x what Chernobyl was for the Soviet Union, it wouldn't just be an accident at that point.
Would it totally legitimize the Chinese state in the eyes of its people and the world? And for that reason, could we ever expect a honest accounting? Too much blood (literal and metaphorical) has been spilled and with the lockdowns, vaccine mandates, passports, school closures, etc and everything else that has happened, most elite institutions, state actors, businesses, media, corporations have become complicit in some way in abuses, lies, deliberate obfuscation of one type or another.
> I am really interested in the social-political dimension of this. Was the initial hypothesis of a lab leak suppressed during the initial part of the pandemic primarily due to Western government's fear of a diplomatic breakdown (like Russia) with China? The economies are far more interdependent than compared to Russia and there is a far more economically important Chinese diaspora in the West.
I wonder to what extent the hypothesis has been shutdown because the people who were considered to be qualified to make that assessment are interested in the continuation of gain-of-function research.
> What would it take to get a honest investigation within China? Presumably not under the current regime
You answered it yourself, impossible under the CCP. It seems that they convinced their population that the virus has actually emerged somewhere in the west, and that was the end of it for them.
What would it take to get a honest investgation within US? The fundemental issue is why would PRC entertain US lab leak propaganda narrative? Let alone submit to basically weapons inspection tier scrutiny that no sane sovereign would permit. Keep in mind "lab leak" hypothesis was conjectured by PRC netizens along with US Fort Detrick lab influenza and Wuhan military games conspiracy theories. Obviously US politicians and "intelligence" would conveniently converge on the theory that looks bad for PRC. Is US going to cooperate to address the other PRC conspiracy theories and let WHO investigate USAMRIID? The realistic answer is covid will become distant memory and origin will be relegated to conjecture based on domestic politics.
What would it take to get a honest investigation within China? Presumably not under the current regime - if it were true, the magnitude of the disaster would be 100x what Chernobyl was for the Soviet Union, it wouldn't just be an accident at that point.
Would it totally legitimize the Chinese state in the eyes of its people and the world? And for that reason, could we ever expect a honest accounting? Too much blood (literal and metaphorical) has been spilled and with the lockdowns, vaccine mandates, passports, school closures, etc and everything else that has happened, most elite institutions, state actors, businesses, media, corporations have become complicit in some way in abuses, lies, deliberate obfuscation of one type or another.
It feels like a breakpoint in history to me.