The
Guardian
Sat 11 Apr 2020 13.33 BST
China
is cracking down on publication of academic research about the origins of the
novel coronavirus, in what is likely to be part of a wider attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic,
documents published online by Chinese universities appear to show.
Two
websites for leading Chinese universities appear to have recently published and
then removed pages that reference a new policy requiring academic papers
dealing with Covid-19 to undergo extra vetting before they are submitted for
publication.
Research
on the origins of the virus is particularly sensitive and subject to checks by
government officials, the notices posted on the websites of Fudan University
and the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
said. Both the deleted pages were accessed from online caches.
Prof
Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, said the Chinese
government had had a heavy focus on how the evolution and management of the
virus is perceived since the early days of the outbreak.
“In
terms of priority, controlling the narrative is more important than the public
health or the economic fallout,” he said. “It doesn’t mean the economy and
public health aren’t important. But the narrative is paramount.”
With
the virus having infected more than a million people worldwide and caused heavy
casualties particularly across Europe and the US, details about its origin
and the first weeks of the pandemic – when
there was a cover-up by local officials – may be considered particularly
sensitive.
“If
these documents are authentic it would suggest the government really wants to
control the narrative about the origins of Covid-19 very tightly,” said Tsang
of the reports of new regulations.
China
University of Geosciences (Wuhan) appears to have published and then deleted new
requirements that academic papers dealing with the origins of the virus be
approved by China’s ministry of science and technology before publication.
The
university’s academic committee was expected to first go through the research
“with an emphasis on checking the accuracy of the thesis, as well as whether it
is suitable for publication,” the regulation said.
“When
the checks have been completed, the school should report to the Ministry of
Science and Technology [MOST], and it should only be published after it has
[also] been checked by MOST,” it said.
Despite
its name, the geosciences university announced elsewhere on its website that it
was carrying out coronavirus research.
A
separate document obtained by the Guardian, which could not be independently
verified, appears to be from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University and also
said publication of research into the origins of Covid-19 would need approval
from the science and technology ministry
Another
notice, which appears to have been published on 9 April by the school of
information science and technology at Fudan University in Shanghai, called for
“strict and serious” management of papers investigating the source of the
outbreak.
Papers
could only be submitted for publication after being approved by a special
office. Email, names and phone numbers provided on the notice suggested that
office was part of China’s ministry of education.
A
source who alerted the Guardian to cached versions of the websites, and who
spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they were concerned by what appeared
to be an attempt by Chinese authorities to intervene in the independence of the
scientific process.
The
person said researchers submitting academic papers on other medical topics did
not have to vet their work with government ministries before seeking
publication.
A
technical analysis of the cached websites indicated that the posts were
published on verified university websites before they were removed. The
Guardian could not independently verify that they reflected a new government
policy.
The
notices appear to be part of a broader push to manage research on the virus.
The science and technology ministry said on 3 April that ongoing clinical research
on the coronavirus must be reported to authorities within three days or be
halted.
In
March China’s president, Xi Jinping, published an essay that included “tracing
the origin of the virus” on a list of national priorities. It was referenced by the science and technology
ministry shortly before the universities posted their orders.
The
Chinese government did not reply to a request for comment sent by the Guardian
to the Chinese embassy in Washington.
While
the exact origin of the pandemic is still not certain, one commonly held
hypothesis is that it began following an interaction between a human and an
animal at the Huanan seafood “wet market” in Wuhan.
Scientists
have said the virus probably originated in bats and then passed through an
intermediary animal before infecting the first human.
Scientists
believe the transmission was similar to that in the 2002 outbreak of Sars. Some
criticism of China has focused on why the government did not shut down wet
markets after the previous outbreaks of coronaviruses.
Kevin
Carrico, a senior research fellow of Chinese studies at Monash University, said
he was not aware of any specific recent change to rules for academic research
in China in connection to Covid-19, but the documents were generally consistent
with efforts by China to control the narrative of the pandemic.
“They
are seeking to transform it from a massive disaster to one where the government
did everything right and gave the rest of the world time to prepare,” Carrico
said.
Carrico
said those efforts had been evident in communications ranging from government
pronouncements at the highest level to public sentiment on social media.
“There
is a desire to a degree to deny realities that are staring at us in the face …
that this is a massive pandemic that originated in a place that the Chinese
government really should have cleaned up after Sars,” he said.
Around
a month ago senior Chinese diplomats, officials and state media all publicly
encouraged speculation that the new coronavirus could have come from outside the country. The
foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian suggested without evidence that the US
military might have brought the virus to Wuhan.
