Revisiting COVID-19 Origin: Geopolitics And Culture – OpEd

Key Takeaways:

• Pandemic as Geopolitical Accelerant: COVID-19 intensified strategic competition and narrative battles, with early Western (especially U.S.) framing blaming China for the virus’s origins and response, fueling Sinophobia, while international cooperation largely gave way to mutual recriminations.
• Recent Claims Revive Lab-Leak Debate: In June 2026, outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents alleging U.S. funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology via Anthony Fauci, suppression of lab-leak evidence, and related cover-ups; these claims remain unrebutted in the article and are linked to Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci.
• Origins Still Contested and Politicized: The article notes the lack of definitive proof for either natural zoonotic spillover or lab origins, critiques early racist tropes around bat consumption, and suggests further study of both laboratory practices and traditional foodways as potential pandemic risk factors.

Just as quickly as COVID appeared and became the center of public health and worldwide attention, it disappeared from the news coverage.

Sociologists, economists, political scientists, historians and other scholars studying the pandemic see it as one of the most consequential geopolitical events of the past decade. Not only did it result in an unprecedented high human mortality rate, but it also disrupted everyday life and socio-economy around the world like no other health phenomenon has during the last hundred years. Every one who has lost a loved one or a job or experienced any other negative impact during the pandemic remembers it for the fear, stress and anxiety generated.

The pandemic was a powerful geopolitical accelerant, transforming global health into an arena of intense strategic competition. Instead of generating scientific understanding and international cooperation to combat an unknown virus, the outbreak exposed profound fractures in global governance, fundamentally altering relationships and long-term policies.

The Chinese Virus

Almost immediately,  Washington began a fierce “battle of narratives” initiating blame seeking and identifying China for its origins and spread. President Donald Trump famously renamed the virus as the “China” and “Chinese” virus, and led the U.S. and some western allies, notably Australia, to critique China’s crisis management and governance, with the most irresponsible critics seeing the virus as emerging from biological warfare by China directed against the West.

At the public level. Western information weaponization against China during the pandemic amplified Sinophobic and xenophobic tropes, producing enduring misconceptions and antagonism against China and Asian looking people. These narratives framed the virus’s origins and China’s response as a failure not only of its government but also of its culture.

Why political and media attention has evaporated so quickly is partly because the virus has peaked from its initial devastating health and socio-economic impacts. The pandemic, as a global public health emergency, officially ended in May 2023 when the World Health Organization declared the outbreak over. The virus is now managed globally as an endemic respiratory illness similar to the flu in its impact on lives, economy and society. 

This disappearance from the headline news is also because Western political and media attention on China’s alleged responsibility for the origins has significantly declined compared to the peak years of 2020–2022. 

​Key in the decline is that, despite intelligence and Western scientific reviews and investigative congressional hearings (notably in the U.S.) aimed at targeting China as the principal villain in the pandemic outbreak, this attempt at propagandizing the human casualty and other impact count from the pandemic against a geopolitical enemy has hit a brick wall. Without a smoking gun, the debate appeared to have reached a stage of scientific and political stalemate during the past three years.

Unraveling COVID-19 Origins 

No longer. Unexpectedly, on her final day in office as the United States Director of National Intelligence in June 2026, Tulsi Gabbard released a series of declassified documents alleging that Dr. Anthony Fauci used American taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Her statement on her accessible X.com account reads:

“Yesterday was my final day as Director of National Intelligence. I declassified and released never-before-seen documents exposing the truth about Fauci directing millions of US taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, worked with the Intelligence Community to suppress the truth about his actions and hide the virus’ lab-leak origins, and lied to Congress while under oath in 2024. It’s time you know the truth. Go to ODNI.gov to see for yourself”.

Gabbard’s accusation that the former chief medical advisor had lied under oath regarding the pandemic’s origins has not been rebutted by Dr  Fauci, his supporters or by the agencies of the US government allegedly engaged in the cover up. Neither has it been subject to the same kind of attention by the elements of the Western mass media labeling themselves as progressive and engaged with truth seeking reporting. 

The fact that President Biden granted Dr. Fauci a preemptive pardon hours before Biden left office is perhaps the strongest evidence that Fauci was guilty of the coverup charge on the virus. This unexpected and unprecedented pardon will unfortunately ensure that the truth regarding Fauci’s and the American state’s role in the pandemic will be much harder to uncover, even with Gabbard’s expose.

Did the Virus Emerge From Bat Consumption

There is another wrinkle in the COVID origins mystery, away from the ongoing political coverup but concerning its race and culture boxing, that needs unraveling. Early memes of the virus’s origins in the internet linked it to wildlife consumption in China, specifically through the Wuhan wet market.

These viral memes on bat meat soup and bat consumption were largely based on a video of a travel vlogger eating bat meat in Palau that was filmed in 2016 for an online travel show.  This quickly escalated into anti China parodies and hate content that persists even today among well informed people despite its debunking.

Some researchers have hypothesised that zoonotic spillovers from bats to intermediate hosts to humans could be responsible for the pandemic. Although bat meat is not a common food item in Wuhan or Chinese cuisine, the notion that COVID-19 originated from bat meat or the Wuhan market was quickly and easily used as a racist trope to stigmatize Chinese and Asian foodways.

In fact, consumption of fruit bats is a long-standing cultural practice in various parts of the world, particularly across the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, and several island nations. For many indigenous cultures in the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia, fruit bats have historically been a source of protein and a recognized “bushmeat.” In these communities, the practice is often tied to traditional lifestyle, folklore, and local ecosystem knowledge. 

While advocates of the lab-leak theory argue that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the likely source of the virus since the facility houses the world’s largest collection of bat coronaviruses, it would be important to study whether bat meat consumption and similar food practices may be a source of new forms of pandemics.

Notes

1. The  U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is responsible for the oversight and direction of the 18 elements of the intelligence community. This includes managing the allocation and expenditure of National Intelligence Program funds authorized and appropriated by Congress; promoting collaboration among intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and international partners; and establishing priorities for the collection, analysis, and production of intelligence. 
2. U.S. intelligence declassified records detail “longstanding” United States funding for more than 120 biomedical research laboratories across over 30 countries, with roughly one-third located in Ukraine, It is likely that research deemed hazardous such as on “gain of function” pathogens which are unacceptable by American standards is mainly conducted outside the U.S. in foreign institutes such as in Wuhan.