JUDY WOODRUFF: That party Congress in Beijing where the Hong Kong proposal was made had
been postponed from March, as China battled the coronavirus.
The Trump administration has highlighted the possibility that COVID-19 was accidentally
released from a Chinese lab by Chinese scientists. That accusation is unproven.
But, as Nick Schifrin reports, questions of science have challenged U.S.-China collaboration
and given way to increased confrontation.
NICK SCHIFRIN: It feels like a descent into the heart of darkness, Chinese virus hunters
in Wuhan looking for coronaviruses in bats in a video posted as the pandemic began.
Scientist Tian Junhua acknowledges in narration, there are serious risks.
TIAN JUNHUA, Virus Hunter (through translator): Because when you find the viruses, you are
also most easily exposed to the viruses.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Tian says he hunts for viruses to create vaccines, before viruses can hunt
people. And the promotional video ends with a brag, how many viruses Chinese scientists
have discovered.
It may seem shocking, but it's normal work for virus hunters the world over. And Chinese
scientists have been trained by the West.
PETER DASZAK, President, EcoHealth Alliance: We're working in caves across Southern China
to found out where the risk is highest and who is at most risk of this new disease.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Peter Daszak is the head of New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, which received
Bush, Obama, and Trump administration funding to research in China.
"PBS NewsHour" filmed him five years ago with our partner Global Health Frontiers, as he
tried to improve defenses to viruses that jump from animals to humans, like SARS-CoV-2,
the virus that causes COVID-19.
PETER DASZAK: And what we're trying to do is to say, what's the next one coming along,
and can we stop it before it evolves into a very lethal human pathogen?
NICK SCHIFRIN: To that work, Tian works in a Wuhan lab and received one of the first
live samples of SARS-CoV-2 on December 26.
He and Chinese colleagues wrote one of the first papers about a COVID-19 patient. In
fact, in the last weeks of December, teams of Chinese scientists collect dozens of SARS-CoV-2
strains to share online. And Chinese scientists submitted the first full genome after just
two weeks of work.
That's incredibly fast, a sign of how far Chinese scientists have come, says Gregory
Gray, an infectious disease epidemiologist who's worked with Chinese scientists since
2011.
DR. GREGORY GRAY, Infectious Disease Epidemiologist: The majority of scientists I work with are
excellent and often very much Western-trained and Western-thinking. They value truth.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But the Chinese government put a brake on that truth-telling.
On January 1, Wuhan Institute of Virology's director general, Yanyi Wang, messaged her
colleagues, saying the National Health Commission told her the lab's COVID-19 data shall not
be published on social media and shall not be disclosed to the media.
And on January 3, the commission sent this document, never posted online, but saved by
researchers, telling labs to destroy COVID-19 samples or send them to the depository institutions
designated by the state.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly called that a cover-up.
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. Secretary of State: The party chose to destroy live virus samples,
instead of sharing them or asking us to help secure them.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Last Friday, the Chinese government admitted to the destruction, but said it was
for public safety.
LIU DENGFENG, Chinese National Health Commission (through translator): We released a guideline
on January 3, aiming to prevent biohazards of labs and the occurrence of secondary disasters
caused by unknown virus.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Those secondary disasters have occurred before. The World Health Organization
says, in 2004, the virus that caused the previous year's SARS epidemic accidentally got out
of a Beijing lab, where it was being analyzed by scientists, causing small, brief outbreaks.
Scientists believe a 1977 influenza epidemic spread after a Russian lab accident. And leaks
have even happened in the U.S.
WOMAN: We learned today that about 75 government scientists may have been exposed to live anthrax
bacteria.
NICK SCHIFRIN: The Trump administration has repeatedly raised the possibility of a lab
accident sparking the COVID-19 pandemic.
MIKE POMPEO: There's enormous evidence that's that where this began.
NICK SCHIFRIN: National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien added a crucial caveat.
ROBERT O'BRIEN, U.S. National Security Adviser: Look, there's certainly the potential it came
from the laboratory.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Some scientists we interviewed agree the potential exists and worry about
lab security.
TIM TREVAN, Biological Safety Expert: There's still this culture of compliance, rather than
a culture of safety.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Tim Trevan is a biological safety expert. He questions whether the Chinese
government would allow scientists to point out mistakes.
TIM TREVAN: If you have a society where it's extremely hierarchical, and people don't question
their superiors, and, if, on top of that, you have a political system that disappears
whistle-blowers, then it's a very difficult starting point to have a learning organization
where everyone feels safe to speak up when they see things which aren't going right.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But Trevan and other scientists say there is no evidence of a lab leak. And
over the last few decades, the Chinese have dramatically improved their facilities.
DR. GREGORY GRAY: There's a lot of scrutiny now. There's video cameras monitoring who
does what. Often, they have rules like we do, where a junior person will have to be
partnered with senior personnel.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But the Chinese government has admitted it needs to strengthen biosecurity.
WOMAN: Chinese President Xi Jinping says epidemic prevention and control systems must be strengthened.
NICK SCHIFRIN: In February, Xi Jinping announced new biosafety rules. The pro-Communist Party
tabloid Global Times wrote that labs faced chronic inadequate management issues, though
denied this had anything to do with COVID-19.
But at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, at the center of many U.S. accusations, Deputy
Director Yuan Zhiming wrote a paper about China's lab security last year that admits:
"Most laboratories lack specialized biosafety managers and engineers. This makes it difficult
to identify and mitigate potential safety hazards."
The U.S. argues, the Chinese government must allow Chinese scientists to voice those concerns
as a matter of life and death, as Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger put it, quoting
a famous Chinese writer in mandarin.
"Those with the fortitude to seek and speak the truth in China today may take comfort
in something Lu Xun wrote: Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood."
For Xi Jinping, today's meeting is designed to project and ensure national unity. He has
centralized authority. And that's affected even the scientists.
DR. GREGORY GRAY: Some of our best collaborators come from Beijing and from one of the leading
military epidemiological institutions there.
And in the last few years, there's been more scrutiny with respect to me going, visiting
them in their facilities. Their availability has been somewhat reduced. And so I attribute
it to sort of a consolidation of power of Xi Jinping.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But it goes both ways. The Trump administration ended Peter Daszak's
grant to work with Chinese scientists.
Collaboration is eroding, as the two countries increase confrontation.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin.