There are still lots of other confounding variables there that you need to factor into the probability.

Maybe I shouldn't say overwhelmingly likely for all of those possibilities - a lab escape isn't that unlikely. But there's no evidence of that. If it's true, we indeed may never discover any evidence, but evidence is still required to actually make the claim. As it is now, it's only worthy of speculation.

edit: I edited my original post to make my beliefs more clear.

I can understand the logic to shutting down pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen if you're a party member and your political system is at stake. This type of thing (sadly) happens all around the world.

But I don't see what was to be gained. Take in mind there are a not insignificant number of people who believe that the US planned 9/11 and Pearl Harbor as well. It just seems like in all these cases (9/11, Pearl Harbor, Coronavirus) to not be in the country's interests at all.

9/11 is not a good example here. It allowed US to pass important PRISM-like PATRIOT acts without much opposition from US citizens, just in time for the rise of the Internet. It also provided a great narrative to start Iraq war and forced them to accept USD for their oil, strengthening the economy. So it clearly was in both government and (some) citizens interest for 9/11 to happen.

It's not easy to find any Coronavirus-related political narratives for China or any other country yet, because nothing has changed in China politics, but we will wait and see.

Don’t forget the anthrax used here either a month after 911.

I agree it seems incredibly illogical and unlikely that China would deliberately do something like this. But putting on my devil's advocate hat, the "no political motive" angle isn't as strong a rebuttal as it could be. The Chinese government has a long track record of fearing problems that this sort of virus would solve, problems like:

1. A heavy dependency on economic growth for legitimacy, threatened by an impending demographic "time bomb" of the elderly:

https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/21...

2. Also, a long standing fear of general over-population (one child policy)

3. An absolute fear of people gathering in large groups outside to protest and organise via non-electronic means that can't be monitored

From a Machiavellian perspective a virus that leaves the productive workforce untouched, kills primarily the old/infirm, is unlikely to be reliably vaccinatable, which can be used to justify near-endless waves of house arrest, which motivates neighbours to enforce house arrest against each other and in which the only information about whether there's an active resurgence comes via state controlled media .... doesn't look too bad as a tool for controlling the populace.

Actually I have to admit, I only came to understand just how perfect such a virus profile is for a totalitarian regime whilst writing out this comment. Devil's advocacy can take thoughts in surprising directions. I suppose that's why conspiracy theories play out as they do.

I see what you're getting at, but a virus that can infect everyone and easily spread is impossible to use in any sort of directed way. A student could easily catch it from another student at school, then go home and infect their father, who may be an older high-ranking CCP official, for example. It does way more than discourage large gatherings, kills pretty indiscriminately (beyond some factors like age and history of smoking), and of course is a massive hit to the economy and society as a whole. And it'd also be very likely to spread to the rest of the world.

It'd be like trying to deal with overpopulation by setting a computer program to randomly select 20 of your own population centers to nuke, then launching nukes. Then a week later choosing other random cities around the world to nuke. Plus, it'd probably be discovered eventually, and would obviously be the most severe pre-emptive act of war ever known. It would inevitably cause WWIII, leading to much more death and chaos. It's a completely illogical and self-destructive strategy.

Now, if it were a virus that, say, couldn't infect those with a gene found in all Han Chinese people, and which isn't found in any other groups, that would be worthy of some investigation. Or only infected Uyghurs.

I know this is just playing Devil's advocate, but I think the odds are so low as to essentially be zero, unless the CCP has some sort of bizarre motivation that's extremely distant from nearly everyone else's motivation (like trying to end the world and make humans extinct).

Kills pretty indiscriminately? It is far more targeted at the elderly than other diseases I know of. Even the flu harms children and this one doesn't at all. Age and general weakness is by far the strongest signal that someone may die of it.

The hit is massive but it's a relative hit - China probably ends up doing better than the rest of the world because it didn't really lock down everywhere, primarily just Wuhan. And bear in mind, China's government has a long history of doing extreme things that cripple its own economy. That's why places like South Korea and Taiwan were so far ahead (and still are, China's still a poor country). Communism isn't famous for being good for GDP, after all.

Yes, there's a risk of CCP officials getting it of course. The whole 'escape from the lab' theory doesn't suggest it would have escaped at the right time or in the right way. A truly evil government would wait until there was enough vaccine for officials and other important people but not enough for everyone.

I guess any virus theory would assume it must spread all over the world. Given it's not very deadly that doesn't seem like a big deal if the goal is an excuse to establish lockdowns whenever the government requires one for its own stability. Just announce a sudden uptick in cases (a claim which can only come from official stats) and off you go.

I think the biggest reason why the theory doesn't work is that eventually it'd become suspicious because everyone would have had it, and the co-incidence of sudden outbreak at times of civil unrest might become too obvious for everyone. Unless of course the virus is used as an excuse to control mass gatherings permanently.

Not that I think the lab escape was deliberate, but: shutting down pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong has been a result of the virus.

I don't really think the leaders would take that risk, considering all the unpredictable side effects, but there certainly was something gained.

> why would you deliberately release a bioweapon in a densely populated part of your own country?

Purely as a thought experiment, China's death rate and infection rate seems orders of magnitude less per capita compared to Western countries so maybe it is the perfect bioweapon for the task, minimal self casualties enough for deniability but the other side really takes a beating..

Again this is just a thought experiment and not a serious speculation :)

So I'm definitely not advocating the lab theory overall, and even if it did come from a lab it could have escaped rather than been deliberately released...but to answer your question, China does/did have problems with A) an aging population, B) a male heavy population, and C) Hong Kong streets full of protesters. This virus "helps" with all of those.

Bioweapons are crappy precisely because of what's happening now. A good weapon discriminates, and lets you kill exactly who you want. By that measure, a virus is about as hamfisted as you can get. Besides, why unleash a pandemic on the whole world when you can just do what China normally does and use conventional military power instead? It's cheaper and easier to get some men in boots with guns to stop a protest than it is to unleash a worldwide pandemic that might last for years or longer.

This virus disproportionately impacts the elderly, and males. That was the whole point of my comment.

That solves for the protest problem, not for the demographic crunch or China's desperate need to deleverage its economic system. [0]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/17/chinas-corporate-debt-is-big...