The sense that this is not good expands when you consider the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the current conflict between the United States and China. Two Chinese researchers in Michigan have been charged with smuggling into the U.S. a fungus that devastates agricultural crops.
Was this an ‘agroterrorism’ operation intended to unleash a serious problem in the U.S. farming system? That intent cannot be dismissed easily.
MICHIGAN – Two Chinese nationals have been charged with allegedly smuggling into the U.S. a fungus called “Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon,” the Justice Department said Tuesday.
Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were allegedly receiving Chinese government funding for their research, some of it at the University of Michigan, officials said.
“The complaint also alleges that Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party,” a DOJ press release said.
“It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America — through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport — so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked,” according to the press release.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the Justice Department ““has no higher mission than keeping the American people safe and protecting our nation from hostile foreign actors who would do us harm.”
The FBI says it causes “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year.
“The alleged actions of these Chinese nationals — including a loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party — are of the gravest national security concerns. These two aliens have been charged with smuggling a fungus that has been described as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon’ into in the heartland of America, where they apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme,” U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgan said. (read more)