OPINION:
Apologies are scarce these days and, evidently, China can’t spare one for its role in unleashing the coronavirus pandemic upon the world. Instead of regrets, the Asian authoritarians have issued plans to build a new string of bio labs. China’s doubling down on the kind of bioscience that may have leaked the deadly virus is dreadful news. President Biden must ensure Americans are protected from any fresh biothreat.
Strengthened legal protections provided by a new biosecurity law have reportedly opened the way for China to intensify its study of infectious diseases. Planned are 88 biosafety level-3 laboratories and, ominously, three level-4 labs — featuring the same biocontainment protocols suspected of failing to control the COVID-19 virus that has killed more than 3 million worldwide.
Proof of the deadly virus’ origin remains inconclusive, but China’s refusal to allow World Health Organization investigators open access to the Wuhan virology laboratory near COVID-19 ground zero strongly suggests a cover-up. Suspicion has its place, and there is every reason to be wary of a nation that refuses to shed light on its role in spreading human suffering, whether inadvertently or otherwise.
Americans rely on President Biden to stand tall against foreign threats. For a president whom his deputies insist was brought down recently by a gust of wind rather than age-related infirmity, China poses a stiff challenge. Whether Mr. Biden and his team are up to the challenge is all the more dubious given accounts of a recent bilateral dialogue in Alaska, during which Chinese diplomats apparently wiped the floor with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In an initial phone conversation with President Xi Jinping, Mr. Biden reportedly made no mention of China’s role in unleashing a pandemic that has now killed more than 575,000 Americans. Instead, the president has settled into a pattern of economic tit-for-tat with his rival. China greeted the new president on his first full day in office by imposing sanctions on former top U.S. diplomat Mike Pompeo and 27 other Trump officials. Mr. Biden responded in March by blacklisting five Chinese telecom firms on national security grounds.
The Biden administration has since added more Chinese telecom and computer companies to its blacklist, and has sanctioned both mainland and Hong Kong officials over human rights abuses. The European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada have joined the U.S. in imposing additional penalties over abuses in Xinjiang province. China has reacted with its own sanctions on a handful of EU individuals and companies.
The coronavirus has claimed more American lives than World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined. Whether death was unleashed by accident or intent, Beijing has demonstrated little regret. Perhaps mindful of the adage that “the best defense is a good offense,” China is instead doubling down on potentially virulent bioscience. Mr. Biden must not fall down on the job of safeguarding Americans from the next pandemic.
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