Fox News’ Lou Dobbs has been one of the most reliable voices cutting through the fog on this subject, and in one of his monologues and interviews last week, he neatly summarized exactly what the Chinese did in covering up the virus and how they are exploiting sympathetic media to twist the reality by attempting to control the language used during this crisis. Here is some of what he had to say, as well as his interview with Dr. Gordon Chang of the Gatestone Institute:

Dobbs’ monologue: Communist China is desperately trying to shed responsibility – their responsibility – for spreading the Wuhan virus throughout the world. There are a number of reports, however, pointing to a major cover-up by China’s leaders in the early days of the virus. In a release in Hubei province where that virus originated, [the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission} stated: “According to epidemiological surveys by national, provincial and municipal experts, the incidence of unexplained viral pneumonia in Wuhan this time was between December 8 2019 and January 2, 2020.” The first patients were said to have had an onset of symptoms on December 8^th. In the following days, we know that a handful of workers in a seafood market and wildlife market in the city of Wuhan fell ill and were admitted to local hospitals. One of them – a 65-year-old delivery man who went to Wuhan Central Hospital. The head of the emergency dept there said “fluid samples were taken from the man’s lung on December 24^th. [Three days later,] the laboratory had created a partial genome sequence for most of the virus and told the hospital they believed the drive had a new coronavirus similar to SARS but new to mankind. Again, by December 27^th, there was knowledge in China about the virus [that would soon] be wreaking havoc on the world and global economy.

As word started to spread around the medical community in Wuhan, some doctors alerted others using Chinese social messaging – the app WeChat. One of those doctors, Li Wenliang, was threatened by the Communist Chinese government before mysteriously contracting the virus and then dying as a result of it last month. The Chinese government waited until December 31^st before they alerted the World Health Organization to cases of the new respiratory disease. China’s National Health Commission put a gag order on hospitals and laboratories on January 3^rd, telling laboratories to hand over any biological samples that they had taken in order to destroy them. Those orders, however, came too late to stop a shipment of biological samples making their way by train from Wuhan to a doctor at Shanghai University. His team created the genome sequence for the virus and public shared that sequencing. The university’s health lab was then shut down the next day for “rectification,” as the government called it. If it weren’t for that shipment making its way to Shanghai, we may never have had critical information needed for the world to start on a vaccine and therapeutics for the Wuhan virus. It’s a story that China’s government doesn’t want you to hear.

Beijing is now going further, ramping up their propaganda – even concocting a silly claim the US Army spread the virus in Wuhan – and is now throwing out American journalists. China is also driving the narrative that the term “China virus” is racist – a message picked up here by the leftwing national media. Of course, it gives them a way to attack President Trump.

(plays a clip of an interaction between a CNN reporter and President Trump on why he refers to it as the “China virus.” His response: “Because that’s where it comes from.”)

Dobbs then interviewed Dr. Gordon Chang (author, columnist and senior contributor at the Gatestone Institute):

Dobbs: this propaganda campaign by China. The Communist Party concocting this silly claim that the US Army dropped some viruses in Wuhan. That is so on its face ridiculous. How is it that they are suddenly resorting to absurd claims … things that they know will have absolutely no credulity with Americans or anyone else who is reasonable?

Chang: What’s happening is that the Communist Party is very sensitive about its secrecy – that it covered up the virus. The Chinese people have really been calling for fundamental political change, and they’ve been doing it openly on China’s social media platforms. You talked about the death of Dr. Li, one of the “Wuhan Eight.” [The Chinese ultimately reported 8 new coronaviruses to the WHO this year.] That actually ignited the Chinese population against the Party. Really what the Party is trying to do is to find an enemy, and that enemy is the United States. They’ve come up with these dangerous claims that the US Army spread this to Wuhan, and so essentially what they’ve got themselves into is a situation in which the Party is engaged in unrelenting hostility to the United States.

Dobbs: That unrelenting hostility … I think we have to acknowledge that ourselves … among the physicians who are talking with … the researchers and the government officials who are working with the Chinese on the Wuhan virus. They’ve had very good communications and very good cooperation – even sharing ideas – from the Chinese – with our doctors and researchers.

Chang: On a doctor to doctor basis, there is good cooperation. The problem is the political system in China has identified the US as an enemy, and that’s why it’s very important for President Trump to make it clear that this virus came from China. As Confucius said, “The most important thing is the rectification of names.” This virus came from China; it’s a virus, so the President’s term is absolutely in order. And I’m a Chinese-American, of course. I don’t see any racism in what President Trump is trying to do. What I see is a president who is defending the United States of America against a dangerous hostile Communist regime.

Dobbs: And it seems it’s intended on becoming more so. Do you think it’s reached a point where it’s endangering the historic trade deal the President put together with Xi Jinping?

Chang: Yes. In the Global Times, which is run by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, which is the most authoritative publication in China, [they have been] intimating these last three or four days that China will not go forward with the Phase I trade deal because it can’t honor its $200 billion commitment. Also, in the last two days, yesterday China attacked the dollar in a rhetorical piece in the Global Times, and today, they are suggesting the world is going into a depression because of the US, so they [are claiming that they] are not trying to collapse the American economy.

Dobbs: The Chinese who have been holding forth with such claptrap … seeing that the US built modern China, with eyes wide open on the part of corporate America and Wall Street and some of the accommodating politicians of both the Republican and Democrat parties. Your thoughts on the expulsion of those journalists by the Chinese … the Communist Party making it very clear that they are not going to tolerate openness – transparency – and American journalists.

Chang: What the Party is trying to do is cover up a number of things, including the origin of this virus. And so it doesn’t want foreign journalists in China, and therefore we’ve seen this second round of expulsions of American journalists. There are so many Chinese journalists in the US – many more than Americans in China. We know that the Chinese journalists here are actually part of the Ministry of State Security. They’re essentially spies. The US has to do something about this, and I’m very glad that the Secretary of State has taken some robust measures to protect us with regard to these Chinese “journalists here.”

Dobbs: It’s interesting to see that relations with the Chinese seem to be going into the ditch. And their continuing insistence that they elude responsibility for being the origin of this virus is disappointing (but not surprising). We all know that we have to deal with disinformation as well as information, and know the difference. Once you control language – as the Left in this country is attempting to do, even resorting to aligning themselves with the Communist Chinese leadership in trying to create a sense that this is somehow racist to call this the China virus … when we call Lyme disease named after a place … naming viruses after places is quite common.

Chang: It’s especially important after China tried to say this is an “American disease” because what Beijing is doing is justifying in its own minds the use of force against the US and preparing the Chinese people for that. So it’s very important for President Trump to push back on this. This is a matter of trying to turn the Chinese back from some dangerous conduct. Every American should be behind the President on this because we have a common enemy, and they mean us harm.

Dobbs: And every American should pay attention to the news organizations that absolutely refuse to call it the Wuhan virus, the China virus out of some sort of condescension to the nonsense that to do so would be racist. This is an extraordinary kowtowing to specious nonsense by the propaganda of the Communist state.

End of the Q&A. Chang put his finger on the two key points motivating the ChiComs to continue to cover-up the origins of the Wuhan virus and also to shift blame to the US:

1. The very nature of Communist regimes is repression and control of its people; they cannot allow free exchange of information that might damage the regime’s reputation, which is already on thin ice with the people it continues to repress.

2. The ChiComs are exploiting the Wuhan virus to try to get out of the Phase I US-China trade deal, as their obligations under the treaty and the continuing tariffs apparently cannot be met; the virus is a payback to the US for embarrassing Beijing on the global stage and daring to push back on the Chinese economic assault on the US and the rest of the world.

The end.