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The Chinese defector and the COVID origins story — 47 Comments

  1. But what will the Biden Adm. do with this intel?

    I know what I’d do. Release it to the world at the UN and demand that China pay up.

    China can forgive some of our debt and also issue perpetual bonds at 3% for some of it.

    Sleepy Joe will do nothing. Tool.

  2. Emerald Robinson, the very bright and very reliable WH correspondent for Newsmax, has been posting information about this report (fascinating and of the utmost importance, if true) on Twitter; even if one is normally skeptical about such stories, this certainly sounds plausible indeed. The posture of the MSM regarding stories damaging to its credibility and to its ideology involves either largely ignoring a story, as in this case, or grotesquely ranting about so-called “conspiracy theories”, as in the hysterical coverage, from the “usual suspects” (CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, etc), of the piece from Revolver about the likely involvement of the FBI in our very own Reichstag Fire.

  3. “Financial records showing U.S. businessmen and public officials who’ve received money from the Chinese government….” Uh oh. That alone may explain the derth of MSM reportage on this subject. Need to check with POTUS on that one, re Hunter, et al.

  4. Most of the comments on this story that I’ve seen on Fox and Newsmax pretty much sum up my thoughts: So what?? Even if all true and even if China intentionally let the bug go, the current US government will do nothing and go into CYA mode with the MSM again running interference.

    Neo, it looks like a whole bunch of people, and not just you or those of us who frequent your blog, have also become very cynical about ever seeing the truth again from this government.

  5. It seems to me if he actually had information on which US public officials were on the Chinese payroll, the last place he should go is the US government. He should have defected to Mar-a-Lago or maybe the Florida state government.

  6. There’s only one appropriate consequence for participation in mass murder.

  7. IMO the lab-leak is by far the best explanation for Covid.

    This defector story is the best explanation on the current media switch on the lab-leak story.

    However, if true, the likelihood of this information made public officially is very low indeed. It hurts China and it hurts the interests of the global elite. It improves the credibility of Trump and China skeptics.

    There is also the not-inconsiderable argument that it’s dangerous to back China into a corner on the charge of waging bio-warfare on the rest of the world. (Even if the leak is accidental, China did continue international flights after the risk was unquestionable.)

  8. If you go over to Spy Talk and read some of the articles, I think you will agree that it is a bit nutty.

  9. If I were Dong, I surely would not defect to the US. That is like joining the losing side in a game of war. It’s what Whittaker Chambers said to his wife after determining he could no longer be a Soviet spy: “We are joining the losing side.” And Dong will be perpetually protected from ChiComm retaliation? By Biden and his slimey cohort? Dong is trusting his life to our Deep State?

  10. Far more actionable are these items supplied in the data cache:

    1. Names of U.S. citizens who provide intel to China
    2. Names of Chinese spies working in the U.S. or attending U.S. universities
    3. Financial records showing U.S. businessmen and public officials who’ve received money from the Chinese government
    4. Details of meetings U.S. government officials had (perhaps unwittingly) with Chinese spies and members of Russia’s SVR
    5. How the Chinese government gained access to a CIA communications system, leading to the death of dozens of Chinese people who were working with the CIA

    Not much anyone can do about SARS and CoVid but these five points certainly can be addressed.

  11. “That is such a classic science fiction spy/adventure novel plot that it seems at first glance that it must be fiction. But so much of the last two years or so resembles novels”

    right… cause we dont have wrist watch cameras now like Dick Tracy… We dont have submarines that can travel a hell of a lot farther than 20,000 leagues without stopping.. we dont have nuclear bombs (doomsday devices)… not like they imagined space travel and then we had it… and what about self driving cars? manned flight? earbuds (Fahrenheit 451)? memory cards? Mobile phones (star trek remember?) Geostationary satellites (the author credited with their invention)… smart homes (demon seed? Alexa, Siri? scary).. Civilian and Military Drones (can you say skynet)? real usable AI? a Machine that not only trashes the worlds best chess players, but just did in the game GO as well…

    yeah..nothing from fiction ever comes true…

    may i point out that science fiction isn’t science fiction… its future fiction… ie. all other fiction is either past or present and fantasy thanks to Tolkien..

  12. A Group Of Parents Sent Their Kids’ Face Masks to A Lab for Analysis. Here’s What They Found

    The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

    * Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)

    * Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)

    * Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)

    * Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)

    * Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)

    * Escherichia coli (food poisoning)

    * Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)

    * Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)

    * Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires’ disease)

    * Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)

    * Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2021/06/15/a-group-of-parents-sent-their-kids-face-masks-to-a-lab-for-analysis-heres-what-they-found-n2591047

  13. Indigo+Red says, “Not much anyone can do about SARS and CoVid but these five points certainly can be addressed.”
    By the Biden administration? That is the triumph of hope over reality.
    We’re having trouble terminating Confucius Institutes; in my town there is a public elementary school featuring Chinese immersion. Get them while they’re young and teach stuff their parents cannot understand or decipher.

    The Chicomms and their Democrat sympathizers are everywhere.

  14. Artfldgr:

    Infectious Mask Syndrome has always bothered me. I saw a cafe friend take off his mask and the interior was a horrible snotgreen.

    I still see the occasional idiot double-masking.

  15. @Cicero:

    “If I were Dong, I surely would not defect to the US. That is like joining the losing side in a game of war. It’s what Whittaker Chambers said to his wife after determining he could no longer be a Soviet spy: “We are joining the losing side.” And Dong will be perpetually protected from ChiComm retaliation? By Biden and his slimey cohort? Dong is trusting his life to our Deep State?”

    My first thoughts, too. But if he’s real, then he would know enough about internal politics of US Intelligence Community (Swiss Cheese) to pick the right agency to defect to so as to minimise chances of being handed back or hung out to dry and be knocked on the head in due course.

    There are situations where you might defect to the Losing Side — the obvious one being that you might have some chance of living out rest of your life on the Losing Side and zero chance of doing so on the Winning Side.

    Guy like Dong has been around for a long time and is likely associated with both Shanghai Faction and ex Security Boss Zhou Yongkang who got rolled in 2014. Or if he’d even been in the same room with Bo Xilai at some point in his life and an AI / big data trawling of records was likely to bring up that fact, he’d be on a plane out of there stat. Xi is what Trump needed to be and is simply incapable of being when it comes to cleaning house.

    Bo Xilai gets to live out his days in a comfortable prison with his own private garden because there’s gentlemen’s agreement post Mao that Politburo level guys don’t get executed or tortured — could happen to anyone given it’s Swings and Roundabouts. No such guarantee for the Dongs of this world. In fact what usually happens is that the purged top-level guy gets the comfortable cell with garden and his proteges get the well-advertised chop — so as to weaken any potential leadership rivals by making their underlings more risk-averse.

    If this guy is real, his biggest fear will be having to deal with Stupid Children. He’s come up in a Man’s World the hard way.

  16. South China Morning Post is English Language Semi Paper of Record with fig leaf claim to be independent where stuff gets planted so can be authoritatively quoted by lazy Western Journalists and Commentators as being the Real Oriental Deal.

    This guy

    https://www.scmp.com/author/wang-xiangwei

    Still rides shotgun over it although he’s back based in Beijing now.

    Wang’s an old-school Deng/Jiang era urbane and polished slowly-slowly catchee monkey kind of guy. Probably would have ended up running the People’s Daily if Zhao Zhiyang hadn’t been purged. So his commentaries are worth reading because you get the cooler-headed version without the rabid jingoism. But make no mistake, he’s a Chinese Patriot as well as an Intellectual — a feat Westerners find difficult to pull off.

    You won’t get any Global Times Type ranting about spy scandals in SCMP — anything in SCMP will be put there to sow doubt and make stuff nuanced. Once you give it the old Nuance Treatment, you’ve won against Super Smart Ivy Whitey. Chinese have put two generations through Ivy League while everyone was sleeping. They grok our failure modes and know how to fuzz and fluff things up to flatter Nick Kristoff’s ego.

  17. I have read the counter narrative from Shipwreck Crew, Hot Air and so forth. The issue is that they are coming from a paradigm that the CIA/FBI/DOJ are overall fine organizations. SWC and Andrew McCarthy both say “this couldn’t happen in MY DOJ. Guess what. It has. The Bush administration through benign neglect (or fear) and Obama administration has allowed a separate branch of government to rise up in service of the Global Corporatist adherents. It is no longer your old organization.

    And most members maybe all Senate Select Intelligence Committee is complicit in this. Same with the House Intelligence.

    I believe the reporting of Jennifer Van Laar. The DIA or someone in the DIA is using her as the conduit like the FBI used the NYT and the CIA the Washington Post, Mark Meadow used Sara Carter etc. The fact that Tucker broadcast it means that he has independent corroboration. He is very careful about what he says.

    So why did Dong defect to the US? There can be a variety of reasons. None that we know at this time. He may be on the losing end of a power struggle. Xi has shown he has done periodic purges. He may be disgusted at the COVID and how it was released. (Doubtful, Han Chinese don’t think along those lines). Or I think that things are NOT FINE in China. The lies and capital inflows from the US have papered over the issues. The demographic time bomb may be approaching faster than we know particularly since the young workers were impacted harder than others. He wanted out before it comes crashing down particularly if Europe closes down access to their markets. International Corporations will face immense pressure since citizens see like us how they were sold down the river.

    The fact that the DIA could hid him from the other agencies (and they did SWC) while verifying the data. They are interested in keeping him alive because he gave them weapons to use against the Biden Crime Family. So the Crime Family has a conundrum. China tells them to do one thing and the DIA tells them another and both have the same evidence. The Obamaites are doing their thing…and Harris flails about so much that even the MSM has to take notice.

    Wheels inside of wheels. The 1930’s called and they want their crisis’s back.
    Time to work hard now to prepare for the political upheavals that are coming.

  18. @Spartacus:

    “He may be disgusted at the COVID and how it was released. (Doubtful, Han Chinese don’t think along those lines).”

    Understatement of the Century.

    Also Whites should not think along those lines. Fairness is for Victors to bloviate and preen about after Victory. Otherwise it’s just the whining of Losers.

    Let’s not get too QAnon-ish here. If he actually exists and did do a runner, it’s almost certainly for reasons of personal survival.

    Now, forgetting about cloak and dagger for a bit and returning to the world of Concrete Things (more or less):

    Something occurred to me last night while I was in the shower (No, not you, Om. Cool it!). Was thinking about all the supply chain issues which have been thrown up during the past year+. Anyone trying to buy a high end graphics card or a non pre-configured laptop will know what I’m on about here. Even goes for some models of cars since there are problems sourcing the electronics components.

    Now… Imagine you’re China. You know that you are the world’s major supplier of just about everything. You do import raw materials and some components from other countries, plus of course energy. So you’re sitting pretty while your peer level opponent is left holding his @#$% as it slowly dawns on him that all ‘his’ factories are in China. Right?

    Well almost, but not totally right. When you so totally dominate trade, it’s more easy to overlook the invisible hard to spot essential imports, the loss of which in wartime would bite you on the ass.

    For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
    For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
    For want of a horse the rider was lost.
    For want of a rider the message was lost.
    For want of a message the battle was lost.
    For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
    And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

    Hubris is a bitch. As we all know.

    But think… After a year+ of bi-directional supply chain disruptions, China now KNOWS the identity of all their horse shoe nails. Which they didn’t know before.

    This profoundly useful knowledge has a half-life.

    This should bother folks.

  19. zaphod is all wet in the shower. Who knew or cared or could grok the awesomeness? He and Bunge should pool their insults.

    How much oil does China import? Strait of Malacca.
    How much water is behind the Three Gorges Dam?
    How much rice and soybeans does China import?

    How’s that Can’t Do! nuke plant doing?

    Can Do! beeblebrox Can Do!

  20. @Om:

    Your weekend homework is to learn to Think Like a Chink ™.

    Coz they can think all your thoughts.

    And their own thoughts.

    Think that through.

    If you can,

    My Good Man.

  21. beeblebrox:

    Continue your worship of the Han. You must keep your social credit score acceptable to your CCP masters.

    Why anyone who isn’t Han would stay in Hong Kong, given world events, well that is a puzzle. But not my problem.

  22. Huxley @ 7:50pm

    Where I live in the Philippines almost every filipino double masks inside and out, and is required to also wear a face shield over the mask(s) when inside. At the US Embassy we are all vaccinated (Pfizer) and no longer required to wear masks while on Embassy property (that nonsense began after the actual President was replaced by a senile moron). Yet, almost 100% of my filipino colleagues are still masked whenever they leave their desks, and normally even when sitting at them. And well over 1/2 of the American staff still are masked up, as well. At least it makes it simple to spot political affiliations.

    Filipinos are wonderful people, as a group maybe the best I’ve encountered in my foreign service career, but they live a huge bubble of fear, and have bought the media and gov’t propaganda hook, line, and sinker.

  23. my first thought was … is this a situation where a ‘defector’ is providing real information to hide the disinformation. unfortunately, you can easily end up in the ‘wilderness of mirrors’ that Angleton was in.

  24. “And it’s just about the only explanation for the sudden turn-around for the Democrats re the idea that COVID was bioengineered in China.”

    If Trump were still president, the dems would still not have bothered looking into the lab released / escaped virus angle.

    Because Trump is no longer president, it allows dems to look at facts without having to worry whether or not an explanation of the virus origins would possibly help Trump.
    The removal of this major obstacle – does it help Trump? yes? no? – has given the dems the freedom to be somewhat (but not much) more objective.

    No doubt that if the dems believed the lab origin story from the get-go would have harmed Trump, they would be screaming 24/7/365 how badly Trump screwed up.

    Regardless, Bidet and his retread Obama handlers , will do nothing to punish China.

    After all, their worldview is that the USA is the root of all evil on earth and if some other nation – esp. a communist nation – commits an unfortunate act, well, compared to all the bad things the USA has done since the age of the dinosaurs, the USA has no standing to criticize or punish, however inconsequential, any other nation, esp. a communist nation.

    As for the Europeans initiating some sort of meaningful sanctions, well, dream on.
    When it comes to earning revenue, the Europeans take a back seat to nobody.

  25. Zaphod wrote: “— anything in SCMP will be put there to sow doubt and make stuff nuanced. Once you give it the old Nuance Treatment, you’ve won against Super Smart Ivy Whitey.”

    And here comes a link right on time to a far left blogger formerly known as “Billmon” to amplify the doubt sowing. Commies just gotta commie-on.

  26. bob sykes cites MoA as debunker? Who claims the Right is a hornswoggled as the Left was by Russiagate pee tapes?

    Except the Right is not driven by the same reflexive emotionalism that drive that hysteria. So, I’ll argue that his equivalence argument is false equivalence.

    In the comments, one counterpoint post is illustrative:

    “Regarding Dong Jingwei – He did serve a year in 2017 as head of MSS Bureau Number 3, before he became the MSS Counter-Intel Vice Minister. Bureau Number 3 gathers political, economic, and scientific intelligence from overseas. So he would have known about Chinese spies working in the US. But his info would be three years old, except probably at a bare bones level and not knowing current details or names.

    Posted by: Mike A. | Jun 19 2021 20:52 utc | 41

  27. Ed Morrissey at HotAir (Neo’s third link) cites AP’s prior post there as a good example of skeptical thinking. I believe he raises some good questions, but doesn’t nail the revelations as a hoax.

    https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/06/17/too-good-to-check-top-chinese-defector-gave-feds-info-on-wuhan-institute-of-virology-and-covids-origins-n397478

    AP’s pretty much the resident Rain Cloud at HA; each media outlet on the Right seems to have one.
    See Spartacus above, who I agree with in re the pundits cited. He also mentions a possible answer to my first question when the story broke: How come Red State is getting the leak? That’s unheard of in American Journalism to date.

    “I believe the reporting of Jennifer Van Laar. The DIA or someone in the DIA is using her as the conduit like the FBI used the NYT and the CIA the Washington Post, Mark Meadow used Sara Carter etc. The fact that Tucker broadcast it means that he has independent corroboration. He is very careful about what he says.”

    Someone is using Van Laar: who? why?
    Maybe even “Who, Whom?”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who,_whom%3F

    As an addendum, Ed also said: “Perhaps they’ll begin working on stories over the weekend. Their curious lack of curiosity is still notable, however, especially a week after Jennifer broke the story at our sister site RedState. When they do finally cover it, will they credit her for the story — or pretend they just discovered it?”

  28. The SCMP post at HA that geoffb linked is very skeptical, citing evidence of the paper’s ties to CCP as a propaganda organ. However, Sexton adds:

    “But of course the fact that the SCMP published this story doesn’t prove the contents are true. The reporter in this case isn’t claiming he saw Dong Jingwei or even heard him speak, only that there was a report on a social media account run by the Chinese law enforcement claiming he said all these things at a seminar last Friday. Maybe that’s true and this is China’s way of trying to put an end to the rumors about his defection. On the other hand, maybe China is creating disinformation about Dong’s whereabouts for some other reason. We’re going to have to wait for confirmation from a more reliable source.”

  29. What is MoonofAlabama and why does Bob Sykes think it is a credible source, just because the blogger can do international search engine queries and use Google Translate? (i.e. the blogger apparently is not a China Expert himself).

    FWIW, he gives essentially the same information about the “report on social media account” that John Sexton does at HA. Are they connected somehow? Who is reading whom?

    He’s had the blog since 2004.
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/about.html

    This site’s purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon’s Whiskey Bar writings.
    Some time ago, the commenting at Billmon’s Whiskey Bar became a bit excessive. Billmon therefore closed the comments at his place on June 29, 2004. The community of commentators was left behind to search for a new place.
    Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community.
    Bernhard started and still runs the site. Once a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators.

    “And here comes a link right on time to a far left blogger formerly known as “Billmon” to amplify the doubt sowing. Commies just gotta commie-on.” – geoffb

    It looks like the MoA is just a follow-on from Billmon, whoever that is.

  30. AllahPundit ain’t exactly a reliable “journalist” nor is Ed Morrisey. TDS got both of them, but especially AllahPundit IMO.

  31. Being a fair and balanced sort of person, I also did a quick look at Spy Talk.

    https://www.spytalk.co/p/high-level-chinese-defection-rumored

    The ST post is for paying subscribers, so I couldn’t read it directly, but it was co-posted at The Daily Beast. See my next comment for a DB vetting.

    “If you go over to Spy Talk and read some of the articles, I think you will agree that it is a bit nutty.” – Andy

    The headlines at the main page, which is a Substack blog, didn’t look particularly off-kilter, but I only spot-checked a couple of posts, which were pretty main-stream punditry, so I checked their “About” page. I’m listing the full contributor roster in case somebody recognizes a name (I didn’t). They look to have more credibility than MoonOverAlabama could muster. Brazil is the co-author of the post in question.

    Our team of veteran reporters offers original reporting, scoops and analysis on national security topics, with an emphasis on U.S. intelligence operations, both foreign and domestic.

    We also riff on the latest in spy books, TV and film by the likes of James Grady, author of “Six Days of the Condor” (shortened to three days in the hit 1975 Watergate-zeitgeist movie).

    You may remember Jeff [Stein] as the Spytalk columnist for years at Newsweek, and before that, at The Washington Post and before that Congressional Quarterly (where he was also the founding editor of the groundbreaking CQ/Homeland Security). In the 1980s he was deputy foreign news editor at UPI. Over the years he has also freelanced investigative pieces for a wide variety of magazines, from Playboy, GQ, Esquire and Rolling Stone to The New Republic, The Nation and Italy’s l’Espresso. In the late 1960s, he served as a case officer with US Army intelligence in Vietnam.

    At SpyTalk, he’s aided by a sterling roster of veteran journalists as contributing editors.
    They include:

    *Jonathan Broder, a former CQ foreign news editor, Newsweek writer and foreign correspondent for the A.P. and Chicago Tribune in the Middle East

    *Matthew Brazil, a former US government officer in Beijing and co-author of the authoritative, “Chinese Communist Intelligence.”

    *John Dinges, a former NPR News managing editor, Godfrey Lowell Cabot Professor of Journalism Emeritus at Columbia University, and author of The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terror to Three Continents.

    *Peter Eisner, a prolific investigative author and former deputy foreign editor at The Washington Post. Today he’s also co-host of the influential podcast, Unconventional Threat.

    *James Grady, prolific author of spy and crime dramas, including the iconic “Six Days of the Condor” (shortened by three days for the hit 1975 movie, still a worldwide favorite).

    *Patricia Ravalgi, former staffer at the House Intelligence Committee, the FBI and the U.S. Central Command

    *Elaine Shannon, a veteran TIME and Newsweek investigative correspondent, the magazines’ “queen of drugs and thugs. Her latest book is Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire.

    Bunch of left-wing publications, so keep that in mind.

  32. Now for The Daily Beast.
    “Isn’t the Daily Beast pretty lefty? Are they straying off the reservation?” – FOAF

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/rumors-of-us-secretly-harboring-top-china-official-dong-jingwei-swirl

    Not quite straying.
    It’s a “some say, others say” cold-water-on-Red-State post, without actually explicitly claiming the “rumors” are wrong.
    Just that they are still rumors.

    Two points:
    (1) If Dong is still in China, as suggested by MoA’s & Sexton’s posts, why did this happen, which DB/ST reported:

    Dong’s defection was raised by Chinese officials last March at the Sino-American summit in Alaska, according to Dr. Han Lianchao, a former Chinese foreign ministry official before defecting after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In a Wednesday tweet, Han, citing an unnamed source, alleged that China’s foreign minister Wang Yi and Communist Party foreign affairs boss Yang Jiechi demanded that the Americans return Dong, and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken refused.

    Note that Red State got their biographical information about the alleged defector from the Spy Talk (DB) post under discussion, including the nugget about Blinken, but gave some information ST did not (see below).
    Sometimes you need a flowchart to follow who is quoting whom on the webz.

    https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/06/17/breaking-chinese-defector-confirmed-as-top-counterintelligence-official-n398374
    We now know the name of the Chinese defector who has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a few months and what his position within the Chinese military and government was, among other details.

    Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at Spy Talk reported on the “rumor,” and gave the name and background of the rumored defector:

    Daily Beast said that experts considered Han “a straight shooter, not known to exaggerate in any way or form… trusted for his integrity.” Which is perhaps why they are not boldly claiming that Red State’s report is baseless speculation without evidence.

    Red State added:

    RedState’s sources say that Chinese officials did demand that the United States return Dong, but Blinken didn’t exactly refuse; at that time Blinken wasn’t aware that Dong was with the US government, the sources say, and told China that the US didn’t have Dong.

    It’s only in the last three to four weeks that anyone outside DIA knew about the defector, according to RedState’s sources. Prior to that time, DIA was vetting the information provided and confronting Langley officials with what they’d learned without divulging the source.

    The claim that such a demand was made has not been denied by State yet AFAIK.

    (2) DIA has not disavowed the report either; the naysayers are all third-hand.

    In fact, the DB/SP post only mentions DIA in a quote from the Red State story, and does not mention WHY Blinken “refused” to give Dong to the Chinese.

    BTW, if you haven’t already, read this post from RS with some more of their claims, which they attribute to the usual people with knowledge of the situation (they don’t use those words, however).
    https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/06/11/exclusive-defector-provides-evidence-that-the-chinese-military-orchestrated-the-creation-of-covid-19-and-lab-leak-n395384

    My conclusion: the jury is still out, but I’m leaning toward Red State’s as being the real goods on this one.
    Van Laar made some pretty specific claims (more than the Steele Dossier boasted), which will either pan out or not, but we may never know for certain because everybody in the government and the media lies when it suits their purposes.
    And Sydney Powell’s Kraken looked good too, but never did show up.

  33. This part was quoted from Red State (lost my markers, or maybe my marbles, somewhere).
    We now know the name of the Chinese defector who has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a few months and what his position within the Chinese military and government was, among other details.

    Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at Spy Talk reported on the “rumor,” and gave the name and background of the rumored defector:

  34. All these Instant China and Espionage Experts.

    This time last year they were Virologists and Epidemiologists.

    Six months ago, Psephologists.

    A fortnight ago they were probably Pipeline Engineers and Energy Market experts but Nordstream 2 is old hat now. Nord What?

    It’s fun to speculate. I do, and enjoy it. Would be hilarious if there really is a high level defector and he spills the detailed beans on Chinky Fu Manchu Bat Flu Evilness and American Bug Men Elite Treachery. Would be great.

    But be psychologically prepared for a fizzer. This is Life. Good guys rarely win. Buy some popcorn just in case… but don’t send out invitations yet. In any case, this isn’t a Blood Sport. Not even a sport at all… so no need get too invested. As for the Blood… All in good time.

  35. Bringing up Powell’s Kraken Kaper jogged a thought. (edit: Which I was working out while Zaphod was getting ahead of me, so I didn’t see his comment earlier.)

    “Someone is using Van Laar: who? why?”

    Someone was using Powell. She is not stupid or naive, and she bought the story about servers, allegedly used in manipulating the election, being seized by the military in Germany, which never panned out. Someone was playing her, and her reputation even on the right was trashed.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/huge-attorney-sidney-powell-coinfirms-alleged-dominion-servers-germany-confiscated-video/

    Is someone playing Van Laar to damage Red State’s credibility, and by extension every right-wing site that picked up the story?

    [edit: it occurs to me that we don’t really know why Spy Talk “outed” Dong as the possible defector; maybe they know he really is still in China – but who told them to go that direction?]

    It’s a dangerous game, as claims about the “evidence” that “Dong” supposedly produced are going to stick in the conservative consciousness, even if “debunked” later.

    “The whole question is—who will overtake whom?”

  36. “…someone playing XYZ to damage ABC’s credibility…”

    Yes, that is always possible, perhaps even probable (though not necessarily the case).

    Question:
    Now why would “someone” have/want to do that?….

    File under: Double/Triple/Quadruple agents…of “TRANSPARENCY”…

  37. AesopFan:

    I do like the way you dig in.

    Yes, there are still quite a few twists and turns to this caper. There are so many single, double, triple, quadruple crosses possible.

    The only thing MoonOverAlabama said that I buy, is that the RedState catalog of goodies Dong offers, or is said to offer, is too good to be true. I’ve been left at the Conspiracy Theory altar too many times not to be skeptical. However, that doesn’t mean that some of the Dong character’s evidence isn’t gold dust.

    I’ll wait to see how this plays out.

    Of course, even if Dong is entirely debunked, that doesn’t mean the Covid cover-up isn’t correct.

    I’m not sure people get how dangerous an indisputable proof of Chinese responsibility for the Wuhan Flu is.

    That’s my bet in this horrific matter, but frankly I’m not sure I want that door opened.

  38. @Huxley:

    “I’m not sure people get how dangerous an indisputable proof of Chinese responsibility for the Wuhan Flu is.”

    Yup. This.

    What bugs me is that there are some gung ho boy scout morons out there in GloboHomo’s FedGov Subsidiary who probably think that giving this one a good airing (let’s keep veracity out of it) would undermine legitimacy of CCP rule back home, thereby creating a handy diversion to keep the American Peasantry from upping pitchforks while they sit back watching the Chinese Peasantry up theirs. It might, but I wouldn’t bet much money on it. Same morons have very little idea about what can happen when Face is lost and the lengths Chinese will go to to regain Face.

    Oh, for the (I’ll settle for semi-) Enlightened Rule of Machiavellian Gnostics instead of Midwit Manicheans.

  39. huxley:

    See ace.mu.nu

    A Coming Coup In China? Not So Fast…
    —CBD

    The last three paragraphs from CBD. The “noble thought” is that the Chinese people are going to be able to overthrow the CCP anytime soon.

    “That is a noble thought, but the Chinese surveillance state is comprehensive. The gift of Western technology destroyed the advantage that any nascent rebels and revolutionaries might have. Now the Police State can be proactive rather than reactive, so scenes like Tank Man in Tiananmen Squire will no longer be possible.

    Second is the example of the Soviet Union. They have a playbook for how to fail, and they have read it, and are acting accordingly. They loosened economic controls to unleash the pent-up desire for a better life, and while they re-tighten those controls now and again, it is a powerful tool to shift the gaze of the Chinese people from Western wealth to Chinese growth and future wealth.

    And the third is traditional Chinese nationalism. They may dislike their rulers in Peking, but those rulers are demonizing the West and making them the new enemies of the Chinese people.

    We all want to believe that in the natural state of humanity is the desire to to be free, to manage our affairs without interference. And in many people that is the case, but not in all, or in nearly the numbers required to combat China’s comprehensive internal security and its demonstrated comfort with ruthless crackdowns on any who seem to be pushing back against its power.”

    CBD is writing a critique of the following:

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/roger-garside-a-coming-coup-will-end-chinas-communist-dictatorship_3863237.html

    CBD isn’t writing in jargon or doubletalk, refreshing.

  40. huxley:

    Preference cascade didn’t work out too well for Nicolae Ceau?escu IIRC. Thanks for the podcast download tip, quillette content is very good in my experience!

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