Maybe it’s not a full-fledged farce, but nothing happened in this investigation that didn’t have the tacit approval of an authoritarian government
Even in liberal democracies with a free press, attempting to probe the origins of a massive catastrophe can be a messy affair. The 9/11 Commission, for instance, took two years and thrice had to exercise its powers of subpoena (each time against a U.S. government agency). Even then, some of the commission’s conclusions have since attracted criticism for relying on flawed testimony from U.S. intelligence.
By contrast, the WHO-led investigation into COVID-19’s origins was a team of 17 Chinese scientists and 10 non-Chinese investigators that spent two weeks conducting interviews under the constant supervision of the People’s Republic of China.
