Australian links to Chinese virus lab
A SCIENTIST employed by China’s People’s Liberation Army to genetically modify coronaviruses for transmission from animals to humans has had a longstanding relationship with the director of Australia’s top bio-containment facility.
News Corp can reveal the director of Australia’s Animal Health Laboratory, Trevor Drew, who is based in Geelong, had a working relationship for at least seven years with a senior scientist employed by the PLA’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Tu Changchun.
News Corp has obtained photographs of Dr Drew’s visits to meet with Dr Tu in 2009 and 2016.
Their relationship was forged through the Jilin University, where Dr Drew was a visiting professor of virology from 2009 to 2014 and, maintaining a relationship, visited again in 2016 while on a trip to China to lead “projects to improve China’s capacity for the prevention, detection and control of rabies and swine fever”.
Jilin University, in the city of Changchun, in China’s northeast province, has secretlevel security credentials, “allowing it to participate in research and production for classified weapons and defence technology projects”, according to Australian security analysts who have classified it “very high risk” for its high level of defence research.
The revelation comes amid calls from members of the Morrison Government for a federal oversight body to ensure there is no foreign interference in the research sector, and to give checks and balances to foreign partnerships.
Dr Tu is also a professor at Jilin University.
His page on the university’s website tells of his work genetically modifying coronaviruses and other infectious diseases to see if they are transmissible to humans.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s China defence university tracker states that Jilin University works closely with China’s nuclear weapons complex and hosts at least two defence research labs.
Dr Tu also sits on the board of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s scientific advisory committee of centre for emerging infectious diseases — the institute at the centre of the global probe into the origins of the coronavirus.
News Corp has previously revealed that two scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli and Peng Zhou, who are a focus of the Five Eyes intelligence probe into the origins of COVID-19, have worked at the CSIRO in Australia where they conducted research on live bats.
There is no suggestion Dr Drew has engaged in any untoward or unethical research through his relationship with Dr Tu.
But Liberal MPs say connections and partnerships with Australia and Chinese universities show the need for an oversight body.
Liberal MPs Matt Canavan, Sarah Henderson and Jim Molan are among those urging Prime Minister Scott Morrison to set up an oversight body to maintain integrity in the research sector, which is among those most vulnerable to foreign influence.