America's expert on China says fungus smuggling case ‘worse than Covid’, urges US govt to ‘sever relations’

Days after two Chinese researchers were charged with smuggling a crop-killing fungus into the United States, America's top expert on China warned that if the country is not careful, it could be “something worse” than COVID-19. He also suggested that the US government should sever relations with China.

Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu were charged with conspiracy, smuggling, making false statements and visa fraud for allegedly bringing the fungus Fusarium graminearum into the US, describing it as a potential agricultural terrorism weapon.

The fungus causes Fusarium head blight, usually known as “scab,” and often infects wheat, barley and other grains on farms during rainy years.

According to the FBI, Liu had small baggies of the fungus stashed in his backpack when he flew to the US last year. After claiming ignorance about the plant material inside them, he said he was planning to use them for research at a University of Michigan lab where Jian worked.

‘Waging war against US’: Expert

Commenting on the case, expert Gordon G Chang told Fox News that the couple’s actions were akin to waging war against the United States.

Chang, who has lived and worked in China for two decades as Counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss, warned that unless the US takes strong measures—such as severing ties with China—it could face threats even more severe than Covid.

The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which sparked the global COVID-19 pandemic, remains highly controversial, with some experts alleging it may have been engineered in a Chinese laboratory.

Calling it an “attack on the United States,” Chang said, “Xi Jinping talks about going to war all the time, and he is mobilising all of Chinese society to go to war.”

“So we can lose our country, even though we are the far stronger nation because we are not defending ourselves with the vigour and the determination that is necessary,” he added.

He suggested that the only way to stop this is to sever relations with China.

“I know people think that's drastic, but we are being overwhelmed. We are going to get hit eventually. We are going to get hit really hard, not just with Covid, not just with fentanyl, but perhaps with something worse,” the expert said.

However, agriculture experts interviewed by Reuters said the fungus has been in the US for more than a century, can be prevented by spraying pesticides, and is only dangerous if ingested regularly and in large quantities.

“As a weapon, it would be a pretty ineffective one,” Jessica Rutkoski, a crop sciences professor, wheat breeder and geneticist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told Reuters.

Rutkoski and other researchers said extensive testing for the fungus' toxin, widespread use of fungicides and the difficulty of intentionally creating an infection with the pathogen would make it a clumsy weapon.