PRETORIA – The book ‘In the Eyes of Darkness’ (1981) by Dean Koontz details about the global rat race to see who has better weapons among the superpowers, China, Russia and the United States. It has always been known that biological warfare is real but very people understand what it entails. There are claims that that the coronavirus (or Covid-19) is part of biological warfare but it is unclear who is attacking whom as the crisis grows. No formal sources have commented on this except for Russia after it was accused of spreading ‘fake news’.
As the mystery surrounding the outbreak continues, South China Morning Post reports that “the Shanghai laboratory where researchers published the world’s first genome sequence of the deadly coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has been shut down.” As of Sunday, 1 March 2020 as many as 87000 people had been infected by the coronavirus, that is 7000 more cases reported outside China in countries like Italy, Iran, Switzerland and the United States. The number of countries that have confirmed that people within their borders affected by the disease now stands at more than sixty, and counting.
However, the question that lingers in many people’s minds is whether there is a bigger story behind the Covid-19 virus or not? If indeed the virus is a biological weapon, it will be hard to answer this question since matters of this nature rarely make way to the public domain. On the other hand, there is nothing that stops anyone from writing about the impacts of the virus as it continues to affect lives and disrupt the world. This opinion piece, therefore, seeks to contribute to the existing and future body of knowledge on the possible impacts of the coronavirus.
Coronavirus – a catalyst for a new economic order
As such, the argument is that the virus could be catalyzing the present economic power relations and could. China could soon be replaced as the world’s manufacturing hub. To support this assertion, the evidence is drawn from fiction (see ‘In the Eyes of Darkness’) and developments in global politics involving primarily the US and China as well as a sequence of what may appear as unrelated events. Nonetheless, Koontz’s book is spooky and intriguing at the same time as it takes the reader into the future that the world experiences at the moment. Where this fiction becomes concerning is that it is quite specific on the deadly coronavirus which causes havoc in the different parts of the world. It is imagined that had one quoted the book a few years ago, it would have been dismissed as a ‘conspiracy’ or outright rubbish.
In what reads like an action-packed movie, the book gives chilling information on biological warfare and the exact origins of a deadly virus. It talks about a Chinese scientist named Li Chen defected to the United States. Li Chen carried a diskette record of China's most important and dangerous: new biological weapon in a decade called the 'Wuhan-400'. This weapon was apparently developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan. It is quite important to note that when the virus emerged, it was reported in the same city of Wuhan where thousands of people are either sick or dead. It is believed that the virus may “have originated late last year in a food market in Wuhan that was illegally selling wildlife.”
Another book ‘End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World’ (2008) another writer Sylvia Browne wrote of a pneumonia outbreak ravaging the world. Browne predicts, “In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely.” Social media has made a false claim that this excerpt comes from Koontz’s book. Admittedly both books predict a dangerous scourge that will end the world. Reuters also indicates that the illness in Kroontz’s doesn’t share more traits with COVID-19 and also that there is no proof that the new coronavirus was created in a lab.
When the first case and the contagious nature of the disease were reported, unknown sources, allegedly from Russia, blamed the US for the virus. Among others, US billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was accused of involvement in the outbreak. However, the Russian foreign ministry has denied that it is responsible for the rumour. Other unconfirmed information pointed to China. It is suggested that something went awfully wrong in a state-owned virology lab in Wuhan, where the first case of Covid-19 was identified. Judging from this, any inquisitive mind would run at a speed of light to seek answers and also to attempt to deal with the problem head-on.
From the onset, the author’s point of departure is that powerful countries always work to maximize economic and political gains in everything they do. They have all the power and resources, e.g. capital, information, personnel, etc. to pursue their national interests. My view is that global bullies such as those in the UN security council never engage in direct confrontation but tend to give each other space. They also work jointly in matters that they consider beneficial to them. The rise of China as a global economic power came as a result of conscious effort rather than from what is always said.
Of course, the Wuhan-400 might not be the same as the Covid-19 but the prediction is still telling, and that the prediction that virus will appear in 2020 causes uneasiness. It is therefore for the reader to decide whether he or she accepts the predictions by the authors or not. However, the basis of the argument is that as one US leader Franklin D. Roosevelt argued, “in politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." The intention is not to add to existing conspiracies but to postulate what is likely to happen to the global economy from this point on. It is from this premise that it is predicted that the coronavirus, irrespective of its origins, will recreate the world economy. If this proves unsuccessful, it will a springboard for change that will take place in the future as the world moves from saying ‘nǐ hǎo’ to ‘buenas tardes’.
China playing our game
By Siyabonga Hadebe
