Prominent Chinese researcher Wu Jianguo of the State Key Laboratory of Virology (SKLV), in Foshan city of Guandong Province, died unexpectedly. He was 66 years old. The state lab posted an obituary on its official WeChat account on Oct. 4tth, citing “sudden illness” as the cause of death. It is speculated his untimely death is linked to what appears to be a political struggle in the Communist Party’s upper ranks, ahead of the 20th Party Congress that convened mid-October.
Noteworthy is the fact that Wu’s lab, the SKLV, was supported by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) where COVID-19 “likely originated,” according to a memorandum by public experts, as previously reported by The Epoch Times.
Wu’s career is studded with numerous achievements in virology, microbiology, and molecular biology. The prominent researcher rose through the ranks, being appointed director of the SKLV in 2004. He left in 2016 to serve as director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology at Jinan University, and in 2020 he became the director of the Foshan Institute of Medical Microbiology.
Wu was also a member of the “Changjiang Scholars Program,” created by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1998. The program receives subsidies directly from the CCP’s State Council to fund top scholars hand-picked by Beijing officialdom and then groomed to become future leaders in their respective fields.
Political Struggles Within CCP
Li Yanming, a U.S.-based China expert and current affairs commentator, believes Wu’s untimely death is indicative of a power struggle in the upper ranks of the CCP. At the 20th Party Congress, Xi Jinping secured his leadership for an unprecedented third term, while claiming his zero-COVID policy as an enviable success.
Li said in an interview with the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times that “Wu’s death was a sensitive topic for a few reasons.” He explained that Wu’s death “occurred right before the 20th Party Congress, and he was, as the director of the SKLV for 12 years, one of the top leaders in the Chinese virology industry and, perhaps, directly involved in China’s secret virology research.”
“Especially in the last few years, there have been numerous incidents of Chinese virologists or vaccine researchers dying, one after another from unusual ‘sudden illnesses,’” Li added.
Wu’s death has attracted widespread public attention in China, following a noteworthy handful of other prominent researchers’ deaths, following “sudden illnesses” over the past two years.
‘Shanghai Gang’ Behind Top Chinese Labs
According to Li’s insider sources familiar with Beijing’s political affairs, the “Shanghai Gang” is involved with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the State Key Laboratory of Virology. Furthermore, the group created a rather sizeable special interest group with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS), and Shanghai’s universities, various research institutes, and a number of civilian and military hospitals. This interest group, rooted in Shanghai’s medical biotechnology field, controls funding allocation for all biological research projects across Shanghai.
The “Shanghai Gang,” or “Shanghai Clique,” is a group of CCP officials that rose to power via ties with former CCP leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang Zemin was also the former mayor of Shanghai, and was rumored to be Xi Jinping’s greatest political rival.
According to Li’s insider sources, the “Shanghai Gang” actually controls the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the State Key Laboratory of Virology. They appoint those loyal to the “Shanghai Gang” to these laboratories where they occupy leadership roles as directors and important decision-making committee members.
Through several insider sources with ties to high-level officials, the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times was able to verify that Jiang has significant political influence over China’s high-tech biochemical and pharmaceutical industries. Jiang’s family also holds tremendous business interests within these industries, not solely in Shanghai.
