House Intelligence Committee Member: China had biological weapons ambitions long before the pandemic

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R. Ohio), who is a member on the House Intelligence Committee, stated that China had made its intentions to develop biological weapons well before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wenstrup, along with Republicans on The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence(HPSCI), released a reportpdf) on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic on Dec. 14.

“Our State Department has put things out over the past, even going back to 2005, that China is interested in offensive bioweapons,” Wenstrup claimed that “Capitol Report” NTD program, the sister media outlet to the Epoch Times on December 16.

The lawmaker singled out the work of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s Fifth Institute of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), the military’s top medical research body. 

“In 2005, the U.S. State Department publicly stated the U.S. assessment that China also operates an offensive biological weapons program, specifically identifying two Chinese entities as likely involved, one of which is the Fifth Institute. In a 2006 declaration of compliance with the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, China acknowledged that the Fifth Institute specifically conducts research on SARS coronaviruses,” This is the report. 

Interview with Brad Wenstrup, Congressman (R-Ohio), NTD Capitol Report April 2, 2022.

Wenstrup also noted the book titled “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Artificial Humanized Viruses as Genetic Weapons,” AMMS released this information in 2015.

“The book described how to create weaponized chimeric SARS coronaviruses, the potentially broader scope for their use compared to traditional bioweapons, and the benefits of being able to plausibly deny that such chimeric coronaviruses were artificially created rather than naturally occurring,” The report says so.

A congressman who is also a doctor said that the military research center had also worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.