In late December 2019, Wuhan reported the first cases of the coronavirus, linked by authorities to a seafood market in the city.
Scientists in China and the West have said the virus is likely to have originated in bats and jumped to humans from an intermediate host — just like its cousin that caused the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003.
However, parts of Chinese social media and even the country’s government appear to have launched a concerted campaign to question the origin of the virus.
Chinese officials and state media have repeatedly stressed that there has been no conclusion on the exact origin of the virus.
Last month, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, promoted a conspiracy on Twitter that the virus had originated in the US and was brought to China by the US military.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations, said the origin of the coronavirus has become a politically sensitive topic in China.
“It is no surprise that the government seeks to control related scientific research so that the findings do not challenge its own narrative on the origin of the virus and the government response to the crisis,” Professor Huang told CNN.
“The danger is that when scientific research is subject to the needs of those in power, it further undermines the credibility of the government narrative, making accusations of underreporting and misinformation more convincing.”
In China, research papers on the coronavirus are already subjected to layers of vetting after they are submitted to Chinese academic journals, according to an editor at a Chinese medical journal.
Wang Lan, the editorial director of the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology, said all Covid-19 papers have to go through an approval process for “major topics” after being submitted to her journal.
“It has always been the case,” she told CNN. “They have to be approved by three levels of organizations. It’s a long process.”
The Chinese researcher who requested anonymity said under the new restrictions, however, coronavirus research that contradicted the official narrative could be suppressed by Beijing.
“I think the importance is that the international scientific community must realize that any journal or manuscripts from (a) Chinese research institution has kind of been double-checked by the government,” said the researcher.
“It is important for them to know there are extra steps between independent scientific research and final publication.”
