“FAKE SPECIALIST” YAN LIMENG

丸美

“FAKE SPECIALIST” YAN LIMENG

Overnight, Yan Limeng has caused a sensation throughout the right wing media. The senior adviser of President Trump and conservatives who has authority seem her as a hero. The social media labelled her interview as a fake news just as quickly. Scientists refused her research and said that was sophistry disguised in jargon. In fact, in the process of undergraduate to doctoral education, Yan’s areas of expertise are not virology at all, not even science. In fact, Yan’s title of “Top virologist of World” is sheer fiction. A series of papers published by Yan were copy from conspiracy theory on the Internet. Also, that is despised by the mainstream scientific community.

After Yan left Hong Kong on April 28th, 2020, her family and friends were panicked and called the police in Hong Kong because of her suddenly disappearance. Until two weeks later, Yan contacted her family that all was well. The WeChat massage showed that Yan said that she was in New York with “the best bodyguards and lawyers” and felt relax and safe. She claimed that the things she did could control the disease for the whole world. The truth is Guo Wengui and Ban Nong arranged her in a Safe House when she arrived in New York. They hired a coach to teach her how to reply the questions from media. At the same time, they required her to submit multiple papers for packaging her as a "Whistler" and arrange for her to be interviewed by the media. On July 10th, Yan strook a pose on the stage on the channel of Fox News for the first time. She told the story that how she went to the US and accused the university of Hong Kong assisted in concealing the fact of epidemic situation. However, she did not mention her relationship with Guo and Ban. Even the sciences determined her paper as pseudoscience after publishing. Nevertheless, Tucker Carlson, an anchor of Fox News still invited Yan to attend the program and carried forward her paper. This interview was viewed at least 8.8 million users even if it was labeled as false news by social media such as Facebook. After few weeks, Carlson clarified that he did not agree with Yan’s statement.

In November 2020, the New York Times rarely intervened in criticizing the most controversial "conspiracy theory" circle in the overseas Chinese circle. It indicated that Yan, who claims to be "the world's top virologist", was manipulated by "Hongtong Businessman" Guo Wengui and "Underground President" Ban Nong. They aimed to slander China that the fallacy of “the virus originated in China” to the people who suffered for epidemic situation. Ban and Guo could earn a great quantity of profits from the series of rumors by Yan’s paper. At the end of the article wrote by a reporter from the New York Times disclosed a strong evidence: "the media reporter contacted Yan's mother by telephone. Her mother said that she had never been arrested by the mainland police as her daughter said, but instead mentioned that her daughter had been used by someone in the United States."

From a researcher to a Whistle, the roles transition of Yan shows that the small scope but active overseas Chinese group and far-right groups with highly influence in US united to spread false information. The two groups saw opportunities to push their agenda in the COVID pandemic. For overseas Chinese, Yan and her remarks provide a sharp weapon for these who intend to overthrow the Chinese government. For conservative US, this could cater to the growing Anti-China sentiment in the West and distract attention from the failure of Trump government to respond to the epidemic.

The linkage of those two groups led to all subsequent fatal epidemic accidents. Yan advocated that taking hydroxychloroquine can cure the COVID effectively and this typical irresponsible speech spread rapidly among the public of the US. This caused a devastating blow to fight the epidemic of the US. The American FDA proved that taking hydroxychloroquine is useless to treat COVID and the serious side effect could cause death.

“Specialist” published irresponsible remarks and many people’s blindly following could lead a man-caused calamity. Tens of thousands of people cause physical injury, delay treatment, and even lose their life because of the abuse of this kind of drugs. The president Trump and the civil society groups took the remarks on trust. Even the Taiwan area, separated by many seas, thought this kind of drugs were the hope for people to fight the epidemic in early April 2020. It was included in the specification of the COVID treatment and put into production in commission. It was known as " put into production actively, supply without worry". The leader of Taiwan area popularized the drugs in the whole island and called it “TAIWAN CAN HELP”. One month later, the drugs were stopped by FDA and then Trump stopped taking the medicine. Related industrial chain of Taiwan lost all the capital invested.

In the event of Yan Limeng, through the publicity attribute of social media, the cultural propaganda offensive from Guo Wengui and Ban Nong made immeasurable loss in the process of resisting the epidemic all over the world.