Guest post by Lawrence Sellen, PhD
The University of Pennsylvania’s China connections and the alleged attempted assassination of Chinese whistleblower Dr. Li-Meng Yan
According to Peter Schweizer, author of “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win,” the Chinese Communist Party undermines the United States through a strategy Beijing calls “elite capture, whereby, American business, political and academic leaders are offered sweetheart deals and other benefits, making them unresponsive to the threat posed by China or even supportive of its global ambitions.
Joe Biden has been long criticized for his family’s past coziness with China, most notably his son Hunter Biden forging deals with Chinese firms.
In April and October of 2020, the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint to the Departments of Education and Justice alleging that the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, named after Joe Biden, failed to disclose millions in foreign donations, including some from anonymous donors, presumably from China.
Between March 2017 and the end of 2019, the University of Pennsylvania received $61 million in gifts and contracts from China.
The University of Pennsylvania has still not explained a 2019 $3 million donation from a Hong Kong shell company, Nice Famous Corporation Limited, tied to a Chinese businessman, Xu Xeuqing, who has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, said China’s influence-buying on college campuses is twofold, China wants to gain access to intellectual property of American scholars and also bolster its image in the United States.
One could argue that no one at the University of Pennsylvania has done more to bolster the scientific image of China than Dr. Susan R. Weiss of the Department of Microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Already in early February 2020, long before anyone could claim it with scientific certainty, Weiss fiercely supported the argument made by the Chinese Communist Party that the COVID-19 virus was of natural origin and was not created in a laboratory.
As noted in a Gateway Pundit article, as of January 2021, the senior author on the above publication with Dr. Weiss, Shan-Lu Liu, was in communication with Zheng-Li Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who was encouraging him to enlist virologists in a public relations and media campaign to support Beijing’s natural origin propaganda.
As of September 2021, Dr. Weiss has not faltered in her support of the Chinese Communist Party narrative that there is “no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 [the virus causing COVID-19] has a laboratory origin.”
But, has more been done, wittingly or unwittingly, to facilitate the aims of the Chinese Communist Party?
In a December 4, 2021 article, Chinese virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who fled China after providing evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in a laboratory, stated that “Chinese agents tried to kill me with two poisoned fried eggs after I tried to expose truth about Covid.”
It is alleged that the fried eggs were prepared and given to her by her husband, Dr. Ranawaka A.P.M. Perera.
“I believe the Chinese Communist Party tried to [poison me] after finding out I would be going to the US,” Dr. Yan said. Her husband refused to leave China with her. After arriving in the U.S., Dr. Yan continued to receive anonymous threats.
All of the above information was provided to U.S. authorities by Dr. Yan.
Despite the potential danger her husband might pose to Dr. Yan, as described by her, Dr. Perera was inexplicably granted a two-year HB1 work visa by the Biden regime, entering the U.S. on March 23, 2021.
It is also inexplicable why the Chinese Communist Party would allow the husband of such a controversial figure as Dr. Yan, who directly challenged its authority, to leave China unless he is working on Beijing’s behalf.
According to Dr. Yan, Dr. Perera has tried to make contact with her on numerous occasions, either directly or through intermediaries.
Until recently, it has been unclear which U.S. university sponsored Dr. Perera’s H1B visa.
It appears to be the Department of Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Dr. Perera is working with Dr. Weiss.
Dr. Weiss may be entirely unaware of China’s nefarious aims and the danger to which Dr. Yan, as a whistleblower and a perceived adversary of the Chinese Communist Party, continues to be exposed.
Nevertheless, It remains mysterious exactly how Dr. Perera’s H1B visa was arranged, although both he and his laboratory director in China, J. S. Malik Peiris, have collaborated with the University of Pennsylvania and both Dr. Susan R. Weiss and Dr. Peiris are Board Members of the Chinese journal “Emerging Microbes & Infections,” which published Dr. Weiss’ February 2020 article supporting the claims of the Chinese Communist Party.
In any case, the American people deserve an explanation as to how and why Dr. Perera was allowed to enter the U.S. and if this was a case of “elite capture” by China.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He had a civilian career in international business and medical research. Dr. Sellin is the author of Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution. His email address is [email protected].