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African Swine Fever Outbreak in China - Intentional Attack?
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2019-05-05 at 6:21 PM UTCIn short, there was an African Swine Fever outbreak in Eastern China (Near the North Korean border) which has spread like wildfire over the last six months. It was first detected in a pig farm in Shenbei housing around 400 pigs, infecting 47 with a 100% kill rate, mostly inside of 7 days. It's since spread rapidly to 23 other provinces, possibly more given that some farmers have been found to be hiding infections to stop embargoes and/or purges of their livestock.
China's pork production sector is huge, with an estimated 700 million pigs destined for both (primarily) domestic consumption and the export market, and the current outbreak has chopped around 200 million off of annual production, driving prices up and forcing China to import from other sources to satisfy domestic demand.
If the infection and spread of African Swine Fever among Chinese farms was intentional, it serves several geopolitical goals.
Primarily, crippling Chinese pork production forces them to seek foreign exporters to satisfy domestic demand; the US being one of the few exporters with the capacity to make it up. There's currently an embargo after China applied tariffs to US pork in the ongoing trade war though, so in order to import US pork, China would be forced to negotiate new trade agreements based on Trump's trade deficit complaints. Given the urgency of the Chinese requirements, the US would have the upper hand in negotiations and could likely pursue other demands such as ongoing demands regarding US 'intellectual property' and copyright enforcement in China.
Secondarily, the epicenter of the infection is close to the North Korean border - if it does (or for that matter, has) spread into North Korea, it would be devastating to local food production. Pigs are their primary livestock for domestic consumption, and given existing sanctions and trade embargoes, they have little recourse but to cave in to US demands if their food source is further decimated. It's worth noting that it's impossible to know if NK has been affected as their state media would not disclose it unless forced to.
There are several reasons to suspect biowarfare, specifically initiated in this case by the CIA. First and foremost are the outcomes above - no other state stands to gain so much from the decimation of the Chinese pork industry, especially during the US-Chinese 'trade war'. Secondarily this is the first time there's been a significant outbreak of ASF in Asia, again calling the timing into question. Third and most interestingly, the CIA has a history of using ASF as a weapon.
Back in 1971, during the cold war, Cuba suffered an outbreak of ASF which led to the destruction of around 500,000 pigs and the decimation of their entire pork production industry. It was declared an international crisis and a mystery as to how the native-African virus (which had previously only spread to Europe through contaminated meat products) appeared in South America. Several months later, an anonymous source within the CIA came forward and reported to the San Francisco Chronicle that he had been tasked with passing the virus on to anti-communist rebels in Cuba, but was not aware of the package's contents at the time and only discovered it several months after the fact. Six years later the Manchester Guardian did an investigative piece on the incident, finding several CIA sources to corroborate the operation, as well as ex-rebels who claim to have handled and passed on the package knowing what it was. None were willing to testify publicly though, so all we have to go on are anonymous sources cited in decades-old newspaper articles. As an aside, the CIA was questioned by the senate over its role in the incident, but the probe was closed without further investigation when the director denied involvement. They further made the claim that the US hadn't predicted the outbreak and as such pigs were vaccinated on a large scale, which was immediately denied by the Department of Agriculture on the basis that there was (and is) no vaccine against ASF.
Assuming this is true and the CIA did in fact infect Chinese farms with ASF, it's likely it was done without the knowledge or approval of the US president. He's been at odds with the intelligence agencies since (and before) his inauguration, and the CIA in particular has essentially worked under its own authority with little to no oversight since its inception after WWII.
I fully expect that China will find out if the infection was intentional though, which will likely lead to a covert response rather than an overt political or military one. Russia, China's primary ally, has as much if not more expertise in biochemical warfare as the US so we can very likely expect an escalation of competing epidemics in the coming years.
Finally, Infinityshock PM'd me about this, so thanks. I'd read about it briefly and didn't know the scale of the outbreak so I didn't think much of it at the time.
Sources are unfinished, I'll paste more in and add descriptions later:
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2019-05-05 at 6:32 PM UTCinb4 didn't read
get fucked -
2019-05-05 at 6:42 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2019-05-05 at 7:16 PM UTC
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2019-05-05 at 7:33 PM UTCHot take: a Chinese person brought it back from Africa.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2019-05-05 at 11:02 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2019-05-06 at 8:36 AM UTC
Originally posted by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Typo?
But very interesting.
I wrote that more or less stream of consciousness after jotting down a few pages of research notes so there probably are a few places it isn't totally clear. What I meant there was that the CIA tried to make the case that the outbreak was totally unpredictable and that the US had to make special precautions to protect their own pork industry, when in actual fact they knew exactly where and how the disease was spread so they also knew that the US supply was safe.
Originally posted by HTS Hot take: a Chinese person brought it back from Africa.
Please see next part for more details, but basically the only way for this to happen would be for FRESH pork products from an infected source would have to be brought in from an infected source in Africa and brought into contact with pigs in China. It was previously thought that cured or dried pork products were a possible vector but it now appears to be the consensus that only fresh, uncooked meat can cause infection
Originally posted by GGG1000 Are you saying that you think it was a biological attack, aldra? Where is your evidence for this, because I don't see anything that is relevant. You can support a lot of conspiracy theories by saying "The CIA did this once before."
I'm saying that it seems likely, but I put it in the conspiracy forum because I'm not sure and don't really have enough evidence to make that claim. As it stands it's interesting and worth keeping in mind as more information comes to light.
Originally posted by GGG1000 Liaoning province is one of the most heavily populated provinces in northern China. Doesn't seem outlandish to me that the disease is just where all the people and pigs are. Also, the problem is spread around China. The NK border isn't even where most of the infected people are.
1. Not sure if it's a typo, but ASF does not affect people whatsoever, only pigs.
2. That's something I didn't really go into because I'm still researching it; trying to put together an infection map but it's difficult to find accurate location/date data. Specifically it's spread further and faster than any other recorded ASF outbreak and my belief at the moment is that Shenbei was only the first infection epicenter, not the 'patient zero' for the entire outbreak. Like I said I can't say for sure yet; unique Chinese agricultural practices may be responsible for the rapid spread but given the extreme lethality rate (100% in many circumstances) and rapid incubation (typically less than a week), natural, unaided spread over such a huge geographical area is unexpected. -
2019-05-06 at 9:08 AM UTC
Originally posted by aldra Please see next part for more details, but basically the only way for this to happen would be for FRESH pork products from an infected source would have to be brought in from an infected source in Africa and brought into contact with pigs in China. It was previously thought that cured or dried pork products were a possible vector but it now appears to be the consensus that only fresh, uncooked meat can cause infection
What about poorly cured meat? What about fresh meat that went a bit rotten that a farmer decided to feed to his pigs? I mean is it really such a wild idea that a chinky boi brought home some hog from Afrika and it went rotten on the flight so he fed it to his pigs? Or that sum chinky smuggled pigs home? Or that north korea got pigs frum africa?
CIA doesn't seem particularly likely anyway. Your fascination with wars and shit just biasing u toward that theory. lol -
2019-05-06 at 9:18 AM UTC
Originally posted by HTS What about poorly cured meat? What about fresh meat that went a bit rotten that a farmer decided to feed to his pigs? I mean is it really such a wild idea that a chinky boi brought home some hog from Afrika and it went rotten on the flight so he fed it to his pigs? Or that sum chinky smuggled pigs home? Or that north korea got pigs frum africa?
I'm not an expert on the disease so I can't say with certainty. I know that under ideal conditions the virus can be kept alive in blood (outside of a host) for almost 2 years, but pig blood and byproducts are the only place it can live. It can be passed on by a specific genus of tick, but from what little data I can find on the matter ticks only seem to be a major transmission vector inside Africa.
It's possible but unlikely given that there are common border protocols and pig handling procedures even in (relatively poorly-regulated) China - the virus is known and feared and I can't see a pig farmer doing dumb shit like that.
Further, my current belief is that the virus was introduced at multiple sites concurrently, even though Shenbei was the first reported case.
Originally posted by HTS CIA doesn't seem particularly likely anyway. Your fascination with wars and shit just biasing u toward that theory. lol
Why? They've used this explicit tactic with the very same virus in the past, and you seem to underestimate the impact on global geopolitics this outbreak is having. Nevermind that this virus has never shown up in Asia in the past, and happens to do so during a stalemate in the US-China 'trade war'.
***Again though, I thought I made it perfectly clear in the OP - this is just a possibility based on history and current data, I'm not making the claim that this is what definitely happened. -
2019-05-06 at 9:27 AM UTCI just woke up and was busting your balls for no particular reason. I mean it could be CIA, seems just as likely as someone bringing back infected meat directly. Maybe even more likely. But my gut tells me there is a more likely story here that involves China's current ties to Africa and possibly North Korea - through their ties to China - importing cheap pigs from Africa whose infected meat made it across the border. Or maybe that's just how the CIA wanted it to look.
As always, I will leave the expert analysis to the people you get your information from, and you. ♥The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2019-05-06 at 11:19 AM UTCThe eradication is absolutely horrible
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2019-05-06 at 11:25 AM UTC200 million is a fucking enormous number
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2019-05-06 at 11:27 AM UTC
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2019-05-06 at 11:38 AM UTC
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2019-05-06 at 12:09 PM UTCIs pork the most eaten meat in asialand?
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2019-05-06 at 1:45 PM UTC
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2019-05-06 at 4:27 PM UTCThat is an interesting theory which possibly requires meth to understand.
But pigs being filthy animals, who knows. It probably doesn't have to be a conspiracy. Although it could be revenge from the Chinese muslims for being forced to eat all that pork. -
2019-05-06 at 4:42 PM UTCMeth always helps
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2019-12-24 at 3:43 AM UTCAfrican Swine Fever
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2019-12-24 at 4:18 AM UTCprobably they caught it from eating their abortions!!
