LINKS WITH THE CHINESE MILITARY
WASHINGTON claimed WIV collaborated on secret projects and classified research with the Chinese military. This is denied by Shi, who insists it is only a civilian institution whose work is ‘open and transparent’, and ‘rumours’ of military collaboration are ‘not correct’.
Yet she has published papers on coronavirus research with military-linked Chinese scientists. The MoS also revealed she was a team leader alongside a senior army officer in a major state-run project to investigate animal viruses.
An Italian journalist found two senior military scientists on the institute’s oversight committees, fuelling suspicions the lab was used by the army before the pandemic.
Shi denied claims WIV was taken over by Major General Chen Wei, a top biological weapons expert, in the early days of the outbreak. Yet the news was posted – and left – on a heavily censored website. The South China Morning Post newspaper also said Chen was ‘leading’ efforts to ‘understand’ the new virus ‘from the Wuhan Institute of Virology’ after arriving in the city with military experts in early January 2020.