Rumors of U.S. Secretly Harboring Top China Official Swirl, had info about Covid origin

[ansible]

Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang. Dong Jingwei supposedly gave the U.S. information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology that changed the stance of the Biden Administration concerning the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dong is, or was, a longtime official in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), also known as the Guoanbu. His publicly available background indicates that he was responsible for the Ministry’s counterintelligence efforts in China, i.e., spy-catching, since being promoted to vice minister in April 2018. If the stories are true, Dong would be the highest-level defector in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

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.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rumors-of-u-s-secretly-harboring-top-china-official-swirl/ar-AAL9Tb7

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Rumor - Operative Word

"...Twitter...abuzz...". Hmmmm.
Not getting too excited about this.

[Lancero]

2. A rumor that originated from Red State.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. Further Reinforcing My Skepticism

It was also T***p's go to dodge.
His use of it further elevates my skepticism.

[Amishman]

5. I would normally ignore rumor like this, but change in the dialog on covid origins is interesting

Right around that timeframe significant and influential individuals around the world started openly questioning if the virus was naturally occurring.

[ansible]

6. NPR is doing a report on it too, I think it really is more than just rumors

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007539626/did-covid-19-leak-from-a-lab-a-reporter-investigates-and-finds-roadblocks

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Sorry, But No

There's little in that article amounting to proof.
The Chinese government is being uncooperative. Well, duh! Transparency is not an apt descriptor for them.
She's chasing down what is still a hypothesis (a word used in the article) and still has no evidence.
That makes it still a rumor.
Just because an article about a hypothesis about which it's tough to get straight answers appears in Vanity Fair, doesn't automatically elevate it beyond rumor status.

[Botany]

3. Rumor ... end of story

[abqtommy]

4. + 100 Yup...

[SWBTATTReg]

7. I didn't think that technologies has evolved to the point of making viable viruses so this is IMHO,

still beyond the scope of man's ability.

[Effete Snob]

10. If we have their Dong, they probably know

I can't see why it would need to be kept secret if he defected, since they would know if they've lost track of their Dong.

[getagrip_already]

12. I doubt any man would admit to losing their dong......

To be dongless is a major loss of face.

Having lost my nose several times to adults, I know first hand it can be embarrassing to lose something you thought would always be there.

[Scrivener7]

11. No one is addressing that Italian cancer study that found lots and lots of Covid in Milan

in September of 2019. Before the Wuhan outbreak.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2

[Kingofalldems]

13. Not a good try there.