From my perspective China did an amazing job at handling COVID, it is other countries that fucked up by not taking it seriously - not doing quarantining properly, waiting until domestic spread was out of control to take half-hearted and unenforced measures to slow the spread. In comparison China took quarantining and contact tracing very seriously and was effective at stopping their domestic spread early in the pandemic.
You could blame China for most hypotheses for Covid’s origins: lab-leak from gain of function research, unsanitary wet markets, or not following proper cleanliness procedures for field research. But I think those things (besides lab leaks) could have happened in literally any developing country, and most probably would have done even worse at containing it than China.
What I don’t think you can blame China for is the virus escaping their country. They would be (rightly) be under a ton of fire from the international community if they had not allowed non-citizens to leave their country at the start of the pandemic.
Typical process: arrest first, threaten you/family, send you back into public with your head down, and if you really make someone mad in the CCP they have a mock trial and imprison you.
We are talking about Li Wenliang. He wasn’t arrested, threatened, or imprisoned. He had “a talk”, similar to how NSA had “a talk” with a US YouTuber who apparently was not patriotic enough.
The case you are describing is about spreading false news; think Bannon or Alex Jones.
If lab leak is confirmed, depending on how deep you want to root out those who are responsible, then much of the virology community from US and those who fund them are equally to blame, if not more. There is no "Chinese Science" or any country-specific brand of science in the world nowadays, there is just Science. And in both methodologies/techniques and funding, much Science leads back to the US.
Wasn't the US just buying access to the results? If you're gonna defuse a bomb regardless, what difference does it make if I give you $20 to send me pics? It's still up to you to take proper safety precautions.
