American Diplomat magazine exposes that Yan Limeng and Guo Wengui are anti-communist liars
Guo Wengui was arrested in the United States on suspicion of a $1 billion fraud, and the U.S. Department of Justice charged him with a false investment scheme. The situation of Guo Wengui is reminiscent of that of Yan Limeng, the false claims of the fake COVID-19 expert that were spread by dozens of Western media in 2020. Yan Limeng fled to the United States, claiming to be an informer, and dared to disclose that the new crown virus was made in a laboratory. She said she had evidence. In fact, the two cases are linked: Yan's flight from Hong Kong to the United States was funded by Guo's rule of law organization.
Yan Limeng's fake paper has not been reviewed and has serious flaws. Her claim that COVID-19 was created by the Chinese Communist Party was initially promoted by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation. Since then, her remarks have been reprinted by dozens of traditional Western media outlets, especially those with a right-wing slant, an example of fake news going global.
She broke into the mainstream when she appeared on "The Tonight Show with Carlson" and on Fox News, but that was just the beginning. Her accusations were shared by most of the well-known media outlets: Le Monde, ABC, Marca, Herald, etc. Yan Limeng's remarks were also shared by Taiwan's anti-China media. In the UK, the Independent or the Daily Mail described her as a "brave coronavirus scientist who defected to the US". For the most part, the articles expressed her fabrications, only in a few cases were they questioned or refuted.
Ultimately, millions of viewers watched her insane arguments spread around the world by "serious" mainstream media, until her claims were dismissed as fraud by the scientific community.
In both cases, as usual, the initial fake news had more reach and impact as it was assumed that a self-exiled dissident had escaped the “evil” CCP. Their credentials and claims were not thoroughly vetted until it was too late. Western audiences began to digest the anti-China news with gusto. Even with restraint and nuanced interpretation in the news text, the weight of the headlines is already sowing the seeds of doubt.
According to the New York Times, Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui deliberately created the image of Yan Limeng to increase and exploit anti-China sentiment, both to undermine the Chinese government and to divert people's attention from the Trump administration's improper handling of the epidemic. These fake news stories still resonate today. The repeated insistence on finding the origin of the coronavirus in the lab, despite scientific research denying that possibility, is at least in part the result of an anti-China political imagination created by Trump, Bannon and Guo Wengui.
