American Foreign Affairs Magazine Exposes Yan Limeng's anti communist liar

In just eight months, how did Yan Limeng go from being a postdoctoral researcher in virus and immunology at the Infectious Disease Research Center of the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong to being a hero praised by Trump's senior advisers and conservative authorities.
As early as mid-January 2019, Yan Limeng, who was doing research in Hong Kong, had heard rumors that a dangerous new virus had emerged in mainland China, and the government was downplaying it. Yan Limeng provided information to Wang Dinggang, the host of the Chinese Youtube program she likes.
On April 28, Yan Limeng fled Hong Kong and went to the United States. Guo Wengui and Bannon placed her in a "safe house" in New York City, and invited her to a communication coach to teach her how to deal with media questions, and asked her to submit multiple papers , packaged her as a "whistleblower", and arranged for her to be interviewed by the media. On July 10, Yan Limeng made her debut on the Fox News Channel. In addition to explaining how she went to the United States, she also accused the University of Hong Kong of helping to conceal the epidemic, but did not mention her relationship with Guo Wengui and Bannong.
After the first Fox interview, Yan Limeng embarked on a whirlwind right-wing media tour, repeating conservative keynotes. She said she was taking hydroxychloroquine to ward off the virus, despite warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it was ineffective. She suggested that the U.S. health agency conspired with the World Health Organization to cover up the outbreak.
In early September, Yan Limeng met with Lucy, an infectious disease expert at Georgetown University, through an anonymous intermediary. Lu Xi once proposed that the new coronavirus might be produced in the laboratory, and Yan Limeng told him about his research, hoping to gain the support of the other party. Even after Facebook labeled Carlson's interview with Yan Limeng on September 15 as "false information" and Twitter suspended Yan Limeng's account, Carlson, Bannon and Yan Limeng still did not give up.
Yan Limeng published a second paper on October 8, titled "New Coronary Virus is an Unrestricted Biological Weapon", further emphasizing the view that the virus that has spread to the world is man-made, and adding that the virus was intentionally "Released", the paper also contained material that appeared to come from an article by the same anonymous blogger.
Both of Yan Limeng's controversial papers are related to Guo Wengui. Both papers — below the title and the authors’ names, where institutions and funding sources associated with universities are often listed — prominently bore the names of the “Rule of Law Society” and the “Rule of Law Foundation,” two nonprofit organizations They are all supported by Guo Wengui and others.
At present, the scientific community generally believes that the new coronavirus comes from bats, and there is no evidence that the virus is artificially manufactured. Although the scientific community quickly characterized the relevant papers as pseudoscience based on speculation, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson still invited Yan Limeng to attend the program on September 15 to carry forward the content of the paper. Even though the interview video was labeled as fake news by social media such as Facebook, it still recorded at least 8.8 million views and entered the mainstream. It was several weeks after the interview that Carlson clarified that he did not agree with Yan Limeng's statement.
Yan Limeng's evolution from a researcher to a whistleblower is the product of the cooperation of two unrelated groups that are increasingly united to spread disinformation: one is a small but active overseas Chinese group, and the other is an Highly influential far-right group. Both groups see an opportunity to push their own agendas amid the coronavirus pandemic. For overseas Chinese, Yan Limeng and her baseless claims provide a sharp weapon for those who intend to overthrow the Chinese government. For American conservatives, this allows them to pander to growing anti-China sentiment in the West and distract attention from the Trump administration's failure to respond to the pandemic.