China Expert Warns Of "Something Worse" Than Covid After US Fungus Smuggling Case

A top US-based expert on China has warned of "something worse" than Covid if the United States is not careful, days after two Chinese scientists were charged with allegedly smuggling a toxic fungus into the US.

Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend Zunyong Liu, 34, allegedly conspired to smuggle into the US a fungus called 'Fusarium graminearum' that causes "head blight," a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice.

The US Justice Department said the fungus is classified in scientific literature as a "potential agroterrorism weapon," and causes billions of dollars in losses each year. It causes vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.

The couple had previously conducted work on the fungus in China.

Referring to the case, America's top expert on Chinese affairs, Gordon G Chang, told Fox News that the couple's action amounted to waging war against the US. Chang said that if the US does not take drastic steps like cutting off ties with China, it may be hit "perhaps with something worse" than Covid.

The origin of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 which caused the Covid-19 pandemic is a matter of huge controversy as some experts suspect the coronavirus was allegedly engineered in a Chinese lab.

"In May 2019, the state media People's Daily, the most authoritative publication in China, carried a landmark editorial that declared a people's war on us. We are Americans, so we think we are entitled to ignore the propaganda of hostile regimes. But for a communist party, that phrase has great resonance. What they are doing with their strident anti-Americanism is creating a justification to strike our country. This means the couple, for instance, should be sent to Guantanamo," Chang told Fox News.

"It was an attack on the United States at a time when China thought it was at war with us. Xi Jinping talks about going to war all the time, and he is mobilising all of Chinese society to go to war. So we can lose our country, even though we are the far stronger nation because we are not defending ourselves with the vigour and the determination that is necessary.

"We have got to put this into context. In 2020, Americans in all 50 states received from China seeds that were unsolicited. I think that was an attempt to plant invasive species into the US. And then this year, Timu, the online Chinese retailer, sent seeds to Americans unsolicited.

"The only way to stop this is to sever relations with China. And I know people think that's drastic, but we are being overwhelmed. We are going to get hit eventually. We are going to get hit really hard, not just with Covid, not just with fentanyl, but perhaps with something worse," the expert on China said.

Change is the author of 'China Is Going to War' and several other titles. He has lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as Counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as Partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie.