The reaction to this column’s 2020 conclusion that Covid had escaped from a Wuhan laboratory, one associated with the communist military, ranged from ridicule to denunciation as a ‘conspiracy theory’ or ‘misinformation and disinformation’.

These terms are code for suppressing divergence from the elites’ ‘party line’.

Controversial legislation to enforce this was proposed by LINOs ( Liberals In Name Only) and eagerly adopted by Labor.

In the meantime, US Senator Rand Paul has intimated that while a Beijing cover-up was to be expected, who would have thought Washington-centred health experts would be involved in a parallel cover-up?

Through their cover-up, hiding the fact that Covid was already raging, the communists demonstrated the inherently  criminal nature of their regime. Beijing was of course well aware of the terrible consequences of their failure to warn the world. They knew that the large number of Lunar New Year visitors would be returning to mainly Western countries, unwittingly spreading the virus.The communists thereby ensured deliberately that the West, in particular, would be seriously damaged.

Unless the manipulation of viruses is nipped in the bud everywhere, we are living on the brink of a disaster far greater than Covid.

Already there have been unverified reports of a manipulated Covid strain which has a 100 per cent fatality rate.

The early call in this column that Beijing’s responsibility for Covid should be determined by establishing, with the US, an international arbitral tribunal, was ignored until May of the following year, 2021.

But when the Morrison government properly called for an independent international inquiry into Covid’s origins, Beijing immediately denounced Australia and in clear breach of international law, imposed substantial sanctions.

Likened by its mouthpiece, the Global Times, to mere chewing gum stuck to Beijing’s shoe, Australia was to be taught a lesson. ‘Sometimes,’ it said, ‘you have to find a stone to rub it off.’

Beijing’s ambassador Jingye Cheng even claimed their illegal trade sanctions were really boycotts by ‘ordinary people’, saying ‘Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?’

But all Morrisson was proposing was an independent search for the truth.

Beijing’s overreaction indicated they had something serious to hide.

If Donald Trump is re-elected this year, as this column has long believed likely, provided the process is not again seriously rigged, the possibility of establishing an international tribunal should be raised with Washington.

There is, in my view, a clear case for Beijing’s culpability based on its recklessness in undertaking gain-of-function research and strong circumstantial evidence sufficient under international law to establish its liability for the payment of massive compensation for damages incurred.

There could well be sufficient assets in the Australian jurisdiction to satisfy at least a significant proportion of these.

Add to these facts, some matters which emerged only after Covid appeared.

While some go to helping to prove Beijing’s liability, others reveal a secondary cover-up orchestrated from the US .

What is clear is that highly dangerous  ‘gain-of-function’ research was being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.Such research involves taking two viruses and combining their genetics to create something more dangerous, more lethal or, as in this case, more contagious. Claimed by its proponents that this can help researchers to be better able to react to a pandemic, critics say this is just not worth the risk.

In my view, this can involve a degree of recklessness that must have legal consequences.

It is clear that under the 1975 United Nations Biological Weapons Convention   such research, when it seeks to purposefully develop a biological weapon, is banned.

This is of course as difficult to enforce as the ban on nuclear weapons.

As to facts which became known only after Covid had emerged, the first was surprising. This was that gain-of-function research, forbidden in the US, was being substantially funded at Wuhan through the ubiquitous Dr Anthony Fauci.

The second was the sheer inadequacy of US congressional oversight and screening of Fauci’s activities in this field, something which Rand Paul is hoping to correct through US legislation.

The third fact is rightly described as ‘mind-jarring’ by Rand Paul. This was that while Fauci and other US and UK public health ‘experts’ were publicly refuting the laboratory cover-up, emails ordered to be released by a federal judge reveal that they were in general agreement that the laboratory escape was likely.

According to Rand, a Fauci ally involved in the indirect funding of the Wuhan lab organised a letter from several signatories to appear in a prestigious British medical journal, the Lancet, strongly condemning ‘conspiracy theories’. Then another ally ensured a similar publication in Nature Medicine.

This was at a time when the US mainstream media and Big Pharma were labelling those supporting the laboratory leak theory as spreading ‘misinformation and disinformation’. Thanks to Elon Musk, we know that this was supported by measures to suppress free speech by the FBI and other intelligence agencies.

The fourth fact unknown at the emergence of Covid was the conflict-of-interest factor. When Senator Rand Paul questioned Fauci in a Senate committee hearing as to whether any scientists on the vaccine-approval boards also received royalties from drug companies making the vaccines, Fauci impertinently said he did not have to inform Congress about royalty payments.

Senator Paul has recently pointed out that while Fauci was the highest-paid employee of the federal government, his net worth is estimated to have doubled to more than $12.5 million during the pandemic.

In the meantime, there can be no doubt that the Morrison government was correct both in calling for an international inquiry into the origins of Covid and in not kowtowing to Beijing when they retaliated with illicit trade sanctions.

The decision of the Albanese government to roll over to Beijing by abandoning the complaint to the World Trade Organisation was understandably received by widespread disappointment across the world.

The case brought by the Morrison government was seen as watertight and likely to involve a rare adverse finding against Beijing. It is hard to see what was gained by the Albanese government, apart from Beijing’s contempt.

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