Censorship claims for university research and a document on guidelines for the publication of articles on the virus • Evidence suggesting the government's attempts to disguise crisis management failures

Is the Chinese government trying to censor its failures in dealing with the corona virus and delay in reporting to other countries of the world about the plague raging in China? Evidence suggests this is beginning to accumulate in the West and indicates an organized attempt by the Chinese government to conceal its failures with regard to reporting the World Health Organization virus, as well as the regime's internal failures in treating the virus outbreak early.

Photo: Reuters

Initial manifestations of this are surprising censorship of the research archives at several university sites in China, where there were studies on the Corona. Among the research archives that have been blocked on the Web - the Shanghai University of Pudan and the University of Wuhan's archive of archives.

The first clue to a Chinese attempt to control the outbreak of the Corona virus narrative was a paper published on March 25 that included guidelines on how academic articles on the Corona would be published. Since then, China's Ministry of Education and Technology has also circulated to various universities in the country a requirement not to publish any document on the subject before the approval of its experts, namely after the passage of state censors.

This Ministry of Education and Technology document embarrassed the Chinese - and also disappeared from the network after CNN contacted the office to understand its significance.

Exclusion of blame from China

Apparently, the censorship in China around the Corona is not due to voluntary concealment of scientific information but is carried out with a view to furthering the link between China and the deadly virus. This is reflected in the fact that even after Chinese scientists released the virus information last December and that it passed through bats to humans, China's official media and government itself refused to acknowledge that the Corona source in Wuhan and even accused the United States of spreading the virus across the state. This conspiracy theory was not spoken anonymously, and even a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry argued this in one of his briefings.

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Chinese professor Yanchung Huang, a senior associate in the world of health at the Washington Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, is not surprised by the situation. He said, "The source of the virus has become a very sensitive issue in China, so it is not surprising that the government is trying to control the narrative."

A Chinese researcher who spoke to CNN anonymously also noted that "the case is a desire to prevent publications from researchers who contradict China's narrative."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has attacked Chinese conduct and even U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized China for providing partial information on the issue.