A former U.S. Army microbiologist describes the report as a classic example of Beijing’s cognitive warfare waged against the United States.

By Sean Tseng | The Epoch Times

In Brief

China’s biggest fear: being held liable for a pandemic that killed millions and upended the global economy.

China’s April 2025 white paper, “Covid-19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China’s Actions and Stance,” deflects blame for the pandemic onto the U.S., reviving unsubstantiated claims that SARS-CoV-2 originated at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Analysts describe the document as “cognitive warfare” aimed at obscuring accountability ahead of U.S.-China trade negotiations.

“If solid evidence ever proves that the virus originated from a state-backed lab in Wuhan, the CCP would be compelled to address many questions regarding its gain-of-function research, motives, the early cover-up, and why it allowed the pathogen to spread overseas,” Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.‑based China affairs analyst with a clinical medicine background, told The Epoch Times. If the CCP were to acknowledge its failures in handling COVID-19, he said, “it would mean confessing to a crime against humanity.”

Tang links the white paper to U.S.-China trade talks, framing it as a preemptive strike to neutralize virus-origin scrutiny as a bargaining chip, akin to China’s fentanyl export tactics.

The paper accuses the U.S. of lab leaks, citing the temporary shutdown of Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory in 2019 and a study published in November 2020 that found SARS‑CoV‑2‑positive antibodies in Red Cross blood samples collected in nine U.S. states between Dec. 13, 2019, and Jan. 17, 2020. An entire section is devoted to refuting a court judgment that China owes the state of Missouri more than $24 billion for concealing pandemic data and hoarding protective equipment.

Experts including Sean Lin, a former U.S. Army microbiologist, note these claims ignore evidence of a Wuhan lab leak, including pre-outbreak researcher illnesses and genetic anomalies. It also omits China’s silencing of doctors such as Li Wenliang and Ai Fen, who warned of the virus in late 2019, and avoids addressing leaked CCP documents hinting at earlier outbreaks.

Independent studies estimate 18.2 million excess deaths worldwide for the period 2020–2021 and trillions of dollars in economic losses, excluding unreported Chinese fatalities.

The CCP’s narrative faces mounting challenges as U.S. intelligence and global lawsuits spotlight its pandemic mismanagement, with experts warning of escalating “legal and moral pressure” on Beijing.

Read the full report at the publisher’s website here.