Appendix 1
Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1: Was the drill at Tianhe International Airport a routine – or a rehearsal?
Chapter 2: Unanswered questions surrounding the Military World Games
Chapter 3: Two noteworthy reports about the outbreak in November 2019
Chapter 4: Early confirmed cases and evidence of human-to-human transmission disclosed in academic reports
Chapter 5: When did China, using gene sequencing, confirm the existence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Wuhan? When did China submit a report to the World Health Organization?
Chapter 6: December 16-29, 2019: The initial reaction of China’s biomedical institutes and government departments upon learning of the virus’s existence
Chapter 7: December 30-31, 2019: Two extremely critical days
Chapter 8: Maintaining social stability takes precedence over efforts to prevent and contain the outbreak (Part 1): The first phase of China’s opaque “battle” against the epidemic (January 1-3, 2020)
Chapter 9: Maintaining social stability takes precedence over efforts to prevent and contain the outbreak (Part 2): The second phase of China’s opaque “battle” against the epidemic (January 4-6, 2020)
Chapter 10: January 7, 2020: Xi Jinping’s instructions: The key to uncovering the truth
Chapter 11: Maintaining social stability takes precedence over efforts to prevent and contain the outbreak (Part 3): The third phase of China’s opaque “battle” against the epidemic (January 7-19, 2020)
Chapter 12: January 20-25, 2020: Major outbreak: Prevention and control, “social stability” maintenance, and deliberate deception
Chapter 13: The noteworthy phenomenon of placing the blame on others
Chapter 14: How a time window emerged for the COVID-19 epidemic to spread across China and throughout the world
Chapter 15: Conclusions
Afterword
Appendix 2
An excerpt from Chapter 14–The excerpt describes how China covered the truth about the pandemic and duped the United States into adding a force majeure clause to the agreement, laying the groundwork for China’s nonfulfillment (or incomplete fulfillment) of the agreement in the future.
The U.S.-China "Phase One" trade agreement was signed on January 15, 2020 EST, the same exact day that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) internally declared Level 1 and the highest level emergency response. The coincidental timing of these two events should spark everyone's curiosity. It is impossible that China's top officials and trade agreement negotiators would not have known about these highest-level emergency measures taken by the CCDC. Of course, the outbreak must have been serious enough for such measures to be taken, but the Chinese authorities failed to announce this news to the Chinese people, let alone the international community-nor did China's trade delegation inform the United States about this situation. We cannot help but wonder: Did China understand that it would have an excuse to partially or fully suspend its fulfillment of any agreement in the event of an epidemic. Was this its motive for concealing the truth from the U.S. government and gladly signing the Phase One trade agreement? For the time being, we lack sufficient evidence to provide a definitive answer. However, it is our evaluative judgment that the aforesaid supposition comports closely with the truth.
Originally, China and the United States were supposed to sign the Phase One trade deal during the first week of 2020. On December 13, 2019, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer stated that the U.S. and China would sign the agreement in the first week of January 2020 (URL), but on January 5, China indicated that since U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally announced on New Year's Eve that the U.S. and China would sign the trade agreement on January 15, the Chinese government decided to delay the visit of the Chinese trade delegation, led by Vice Premier Liu He, to the United States (URL). All of a sudden, the trade deal that had seemed all but certain appeared to be on shaky ground again, as if leaders Xi Jinping and Donald Trump had divergent perceptions. People worried that the negotiations would break down at the last minute, just like the last time.
On January 6, the CCDC internally initiated a level-two emergency response. The following day, Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee. At the time, as we previously stated in Chapter 10, Xinhua News Agency didn't mention that an outbreak was part of the meeting's content, let alone that Xi Jinping issued any orders regarding epidemic prevention and control. The meeting emphasized that: "This year is the final year for our decisive victory in building a comprehensively prosperous society and implementing the 13th Five-Year Plan." The focus of the discussion at the Politburo Standing Committee meeting should have been the U.S.-China trade agreement, which was to be signed imminently, and how to carry out last-minute bargaining to obtain more benefits for China. Clearly, U.S. President Trump was glad to sign the deal, a fact that China could use to its advantage. Therefore, during this period, Chinese policymakers did not publicly announce that the CCDC had internally declared a level-two emergency response, nor did they inform the international community about the truth regarding the outbreak. China strategically chose not to show its weak hand to its opponent, thereby creating information asymmetry to China's own advantage.
On January 11, White House officials said that the Trump administration had sent at least 200 invitations to prominent individuals to attend the signing ceremony, even though the two countries had not yet finalized the specific content of the agreement (URL). On January 12, 2020, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stated that the commitments that China made in the first phase of the U.S.-China trade deal remained unmodified during the lengthy translation process; the agreement that was reached on December 13, 2019 (that China would buy USD $40 billion to $50 billion worth of U.S. agricultural products each year, and import a total of USD $200 billion worth of U.S. goods within two years) remained unchanged (URL). On January 13, Vice Premier Liu He led the Chinese delegation to Washington and expressed that he expected to sign the trade deal with the United States on January 15.
After arriving in Washington, D.C., Vice Premier Liu He did not alter China's commitment to purchase U.S. agricultural products and other U.S. commodities. However, he demanded that a force majeure clause be added to the agreement, stipulating that the two countries engage in consultations "in the event that a natural disaster or other unforeseeable, uncontrollable event postpones the ability of either party to honor its obligations in accordance with the timetable." Subsequently, China and the United States carried out further negotiations regarding this matter (URL).
Because the Chinese government covered up the outbreak (as of January 15, China announced only 41 cases of pneumonia resulting from novel coronavirus infections in Wuhan; the United States didn't know that the CCDC had internally initiated a level-two emergency response on January 6, or that the emergency response had been escalated to level one-the highest level-roughly 10 hours prior to signing of the trade deal; nor was the United States aware that an "unforeseeable, uncontrollable event" had already occurred in China), the United States agreed to add the force majeure clause to the Sino-U.S. Phase One trade agreement, without giving it much thought. On January 15, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed the U.S.-China Phase One trade deal in the presence of more than 200 guests from all walks of life.
Thus, the overwhelmingly probable reality is evident: The Chinese government meticulously covered up the outbreak in Wuhan; failed to disclose the CCDC's initiation of level-one and level-two emergency responses; conned U.S. President Trump into signing the Phase One trade agreement with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He; and duped the United States into adding a force majeure clause to the agreement, laying the groundwork for China's nonfulfillment (or incomplete fulfillment) of the agreement in the future.