Beyond a Health Crisis: Washington, Again, Slide Toward a Politicized Abyss

John F. Copper, Professor of International Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. 

The COVID-19 has long alarmed the world. Despite solidarity in fighting the virus, unfortunately, a fissure consisting of conspiracies is seen in one form or another, and appears to be far more infectious than the viral outbreak as such. The alleged “Wuhan lab-leak” theory, for example, remains to be at the front and center from former U.S. President Donald Trump to his successor Joe Biden. Proponents hypothesize that the coronavirus escaped from the National Biosafety Laboratory (NBL) in Wuhan by accident other than emerging from the wild.

However debatable and inconclusive through scientific lens, the accusation has quickly prevailed among the public. A latest poll, jointly conducted by POLITICO and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, indicates that over half of Americans (52%) attribute the virus to a laboratory leak in China, twice over the view of natural origin (28%). Within the policy community, the belief even, as a rare instance, becomes a bipartisan consensus. It is noteworthy that nearly one year ago the number of dichotomous views stated above were reversed, according to the Pew Research Center.

It makes us wonder: why does this point of view undertake such a drastic change over a short time span? What has driven the mainstream discourse toward a hasty conclusion, although the on-going investigations endure?

One explanation is that politicization is nothing but one behind the curtain. When the pandemic exposed an array of issues such as economic doldrums and high unemployment rate, the once City upon a Hill is overshadowed while potential disruption—dissatisfaction and response of the bequeathed structure—is lurking around the corner. Indeed, while national economy is back on track, slowly though, Americans’ economic confidence keeps dropping back into negative territory with one-third (36%) respondents are satisfied with the status quo. Following their relatively pessimistic evaluations on financial conditions both now and near future, job approval ratings of Biden has averaged 56%, ranking him as the fourth worst president since 1938, let alone the cliff-like decline of congress’ approval to the lowest this year.

As a result, the country demands an imaginary enemy more than ever to restore the solidarity and faith in U.S. leadership. And that’s where China came in, the first non-western democracy to experience a pandemic. Further fueled by circulating misinformation alongside rising strategic distrust between the two sides, no state, including Russia, can be more perfect as a “relief valve” than China at the time. On account of the perceived assertive-inclined adjustment of foreign policy, extending global influence and progressive military modernization, China’s image has been solidified to be the number one “pacing threat” to the United States. It fits perfectly into the political agenda with bare partisan divide.

Beyond a public health crisis, the COVID-19 is all about politics, a game perceived as non-zero sum. Whoever loses the game—labeled to blame—will face longstanding consequences through time, excessive audience cost that might endanger the institutional legitimacy, and reputation abroad, to name a few. The origin of coronavirus, naturally, comes as the central battlefield where both United States and China endeavor to prove innocent, with the former has hitherto behaved more offensively. One official move is that Biden in May directed the U.S. intelligence community for a 90-day investigation on the origin, which has been the responsibility of World Health Organization all the time.

It is true that ruling out a potential correlation between the COVID-19 and a laboratory leak is “premature,” and meanwhile, getting independent access to raw data with requirements of more transparency on China is by all means justified. Do not get it wrong, however. The research is about possibility rather than a decisive conclusion, particularly when everything is undetermined. The logic of this rhetoric is based on scientific rigor, does not implying a causal link specifically to the Chinese laboratory leak. That is, to the end the findings may still be a human-animals contact—supported by a majority of scientists worldwide—with the probability of a laboratory leak less than 4 or 5%. Confirmed by a review of empirical evidence published earlier in July, a zoonotic emergence is a way more likely cause of the pandemic than a “laboratory escape” scenario.

U.S. dramatic departure toward a paralleled 90-day task is seemingly empowered with more political values over the probe for truth per se. Therefore, what needs to be more alarming is such “possibility” expression could be misread and become an instrument of politicization. That is the dilemma long facing America’s intelligence agencies. The debate around intelligence-policy relations has come back and forth. One position widely recognized by pundits is that for an aim of informed, unbiased and objective work with intellectual integrity, analysts are expected to free themselves from political pressure. One case against this doctrine, could be traced back to 2003, when George W. Bush made the call to justify the invasion of Iraq. The reality was more complex though, undeniably, mindset on Iraq’s alleged WMDs, institutional proximity alongside obedience of the intelligence community to the leadership, and agenda setting to mobilize the public jointly raised a wrongheaded alarm for national security. The world paid the price for the failure. Estimates suggest that over 250,000 people have died.

The public memory might fade over time, the determination of invading Iraq yet keeps haunting the administration for the unintended consequences it may have set in motion. Similar with what happened a decade ago, aforementioned polls revealed a ruthless fact that negative public sentiment in the U.S. has been successfully framed in an already tense U.S.-China relationship. While the investigation is underway, it is intriguing to notice that Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the president, reversed himself in June on the origin of the coronavirus. He first urged China to provide medical records of employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in November 2019, then quickly rebutted the lab-generated idea. Such quick shift is not the only case within the U.S. leadership circle and takes little imagination to assume that the power might, once again, erode truth, and substantially the nature of democracy behind.

Trust in the credibility of intelligence runs in cycles. Holding fast it while you still can, because the conflict is never pre-determined but sometimes unilaterally constructed. The lesson we learn from the history should be, at least, the already divided world needs never a hindsight nor a leader’s speech to the United Nations swamped with fabrications, a so-called model vial of anthrax possibly being “detergent.”