How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing Coronavirus Medi

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Increasinglyallied, the American far right and members of the Chinese diaspora tapped intosocial media to give a Hong Kong researcher a vast audience for peddlingunsubstantiated pandemic claims.

Dr. Li-Meng Yan wanted to remain anonymous. It wasmid-January, and Dr. Yan, a researcher in Hong Kong, had been hearing rumorsabout a dangerous new virus in mainland China that thegovernment was playing down. Terrified for her personal safety and career, shereached out to her favorite Chinese YouTube host, known for criticizing theChinese government.

Within days, the host was telling his 100,000 followers thatthe coronavirus had been deliberately released by the Chinese Communist Party.He wouldn’t name the whistle-blower, he said, because officials could make theperson “disappear.”

By September, Dr. Yan had abandoned caution. She appeared inthe United States on Fox News making the unsubstantiated claim to millions thatthe coronavirus was a bio-weapon manufactured by China.

Overnight, Dr. Yanbecame a right-wing media sensation, with top advisers to President Trump andconservative pundits hailing her as a hero. Nearly as quickly, her interviewwas labeled on social media ascontaining “false information,” while scientists rejected her research as apolemic dressed up in jargon.

Her evolution wasthe product of a collaboration between two separate but increasingly alliedgroups that peddle misinformation: a small but active corner of the Chinesediaspora and the highly influential far right in the United States.

Her evolution wasthe product of a collaboration between two separate but increasingly alliedgroups that peddle misinformation: a small but active corner of the Chinesediaspora and the highly influential far right in the United States.

Each saw anopportunity in the pandemic to push its agenda. For the diaspora, Dr. Yan andher unfounded claims provided a cudgel for those intent on bringing downChina’s government. For American conservatives, they played to rising anti-Chinese sentiment and distractedfrom the Trump administration’s bungled handling of the outbreak.

Both sides tookadvantage of the dearth of information coming out of China, where thegovernment has refused to share samples of the virus and has resisted atransparent, independent investigation. Its initial cover-up of the outbreakhas further fueled suspicion about the origins of the virus.

An overwhelming body of evidence shows that thevirus almost certainly originated in an animal, most likely a bat, beforeevolving to make the leap into humans. While U.S. intelligence agencies havenot ruled out the possibility of a lab leak, they have not found any proof sofar to back up that theory.

Dr. Yan’s trajectory was carefully crafted by Guo Wengui, afugitive Chinese billionaire, and Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviserto Mr. Trump.

They put Dr. Yan on a plane to the United States, gave her aplace to stay, coached her on media appearances and helped her secureinterviews with popular conservative television hosts like Tucker Carlson andLou Dobbs, who have shows on Fox. They nurtured her seemingly deep belief thatthe virus was genetically engineered, uncritically embracing what she providedas proof.

“I said from Day 1, there’s no conspiracies,” Mr. Bannon saidin an interview. “But there are also no coincidences.”

Mr. Bannon noted that unlike Dr. Yan, he did not believe theChinese government “purposely did this.” But he has pushed the theory about anaccidental leak of risky laboratory research and has beenintent on creating a debate about the new coronavirus’s origins.

“Dr. Yan is one small voice, but at least she’s a voice,” hesaid.

The media outlets that cater to the Chinese diaspora — ajumble of independent websites, YouTube channels and Twitter accounts withanti-Beijing leanings — have formed a fast-growing echo chamber formisinformation. With few reliable Chinese-language news sources to fact-checkthem, rumors can quickly harden into a distorted reality. Increasingly, theyare feeding and being fed by far-right American media.

Wang Dinggang, the YouTube host contacted by Dr. Yan and aclose associate of Mr. Guo, appears to have been the first to seed rumorsrelated to Hunter Biden, a son of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. A siteowned by Mr. Guo amplified the baseless claims about Hunter Biden’s involvementin a child abuse conspiracy. They were picked up by Infowars and other fringeAmerican outlets. Mr.Bannon, Mr. Wang and Mr. Guo are now all promoting the false idea that thepresidential election was rigged.

Big technologycompanies have started to push back, as Facebook and Twitter try to betterpolice content. Twitter permanently banned one of Mr. Bannon’saccounts for violating its rules on glorifying violence after hesuggested on his podcast that the heads of the F.B.I. director and Dr. AnthonyS. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, should be put on pikes.

But suchmainstream notoriety has only bolstered their anti-establishment credentials.Mr. Wang’s YouTube following has nearly doubled since January. Traffic for twoof Mr. Guo’s websites soared to more than 135 million last month, up from fewerthan five million visits last December, according to SimilarWeb, an online dataprovider. Many conservatives who claim Facebook and Twitter censor right-wingvoices are also flocking to new social media platforms such asParler — and Dr. Yan, Mr. Wang and Mr. Guo have already joined them.

Dr. Yan, throughrepresentatives for Mr. Bannon and Mr. Guo, declined multiple requests for aninterview. So did Mr. Wang, citing The New York Times’s “reputation for fakenews.”

In a statementsent through a lawyer, Mr. Guo said he had only offered “encouragement” for Dr.Yan’s efforts “to stand up against the C.C.P. mafia and tell the world thetruth about Covid-19.”

“I would gladlyassist others seeking to tell the world the truth,” he said.

Finding a platform

As the new yearbegan, Mr. Wang was doing what he did best: attacking the Chinese CommunistParty on YouTube. He railed against China’s crackdown on Muslims andpontificated on the U.S. trade war.

Then on Jan. 19,he suddenly shifted to the emerging outbreak in the central Chinese city ofWuhan. It was early in the crisis, before the lockdown in the city, beforeChina had disclosed that the virus was spreading among humans, before the worldwas paying attention.

In an 80-minuteshow devoted to an unnamed whistle-blower, Mr. Wang said that he had heard from“the world’s absolute top coronavirus expert,” who had told him China was notbeing transparent. “I think this is very believable, and very scary,” he said.

Mr. Wang, who was a businessman in China before moving to theUnited States for unknown reasons, is part of a growing group of commentatorsthat have emerged on the Chinese-language internet. Their shows, which mixpunditry, serious analysis and outright rumor, cater to a diaspora that oftendoes not trust Chinese state media and has few reliable sources of news in itsnative language.

Since starting hisprogram several years ago, Mr. Wang, who broadcasts under the name Lu De, hasemerged as one of the genre’s most popular personalities, in part for hisembrace of outlandish theories. He has accused Chinese officials of using “sexand seduction” to entrap enemies, and urged his audience to hoard food inpreparation for the Communist Party’s collapse.

His January showon the unnamed whistle-blower combined the same elements of fact and fiction.He called his source, later revealed to be Dr. Yan, an expert, but greatlyexaggerated her credentials.

She had studiedinfluenza before the outbreak, but not coronaviruses. She did work at one ofthe world’s top virology labs, at the University of Hong Kong, but was fairlynew to the field and hired for her experience with lab animals, according totwo university employees who knew her. She helped investigate the new outbreak,but was not overseeing the effort.

The episode caughtthe attention of Mr. Bannon, who said he started worrying about the virus whenChina began locking down. Someone, he didn’t say who, pointed out the show andtranslated it.

A few monthslater, Mr. Wang suddenly told Dr. Yan to flee Hong Kong for her safety, heexplained in later broadcasts. Mr. Guo, his primary patron, paid for her to flyfirst class, he added.

On April 28, Dr. Yan quietly left for the airport. Her familyand friends panicked but could not reach her, said Jean-Marc Cavaillon, aretired professor of immunology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who has knownDr. Yan since 2017. A missing persons report was filed in Hong Kong.

Two weeks later,she resurfaced in the United States.

“I’m currently inNew York, very safe and relaxed” with the “best bodyguards and lawyers,” Dr.Yan wrote on WeChat, in a screenshot seen by The Times. “What I’m doing now ishelping the whole world take control of the pandemic.”

A media makeover

After Dr. Yanarrived in the United States, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Guo and their allies immediatelyset out to package her as a whistle-blower they could sell to the Americanpublic.

They installed herin a “safe house” outside of New York City and hired lawyers, Mr. Bannon said.They found her a media coach, since English is not her first language. Mr.Bannon also asked her to submit multiple papers summarizing her purportedevidence, Dr. Yan later said.

“Make sure you canwalk people through this logically,” Mr. Bannon recalled telling her.

Mr. Bannon and Mr.Guo have been on a mission for years to, as they put it, bring down the ChineseCommunist Party.

Mr. Guo, who alsogoes by Miles Kwok, was a property magnate in China with ties to senior partyofficials, until he fled the countryabout five years ago under the shadow of corruption allegations. He has sincestyled himself as a freedom fighter, though many are skeptical of his motivations.

Mr. Bannon, whopatrolled the South China Sea as a young naval officer, has long focused much of his energy on China.During his time in the White House, he counseled Mr. Trump to take atough approach toward the country, which he has described as “thegreatest existential threat ever faced by the United States.”

Mr. Guo’s deeppockets and Mr. Bannon’s extensive network have given them an influentialplatform. The two men set up a $100 million fund toinvestigate corruption in China. They spread conspiracy theories about theaccidental death of a Chinese tycoon in France, calling it a fake suicideorchestrated by Beijing.

By late January, they were both acutely focused on theoutbreak in China.

Mr. Bannon pivotedhis podcast to the coronavirus. He was calling it “the C.C.P. virus” longbefore Mr. Trump started using xenophobic labels for the pandemic. He invitedfierce critics of China to the show to discuss how the outbreak exemplified theglobal threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Guo beganclaiming that the virus was an attack ordered by China’s vice president. Hecirculated the same claims on his media operation, which includes GTV, a videoplatform, and GNews, a site that features glowing coverage of Mr. Guo and hisassociates. He released a song called “Take Down the C.C.P.,” which briefly hit No. 1 worldwide onthe Apple iTunes chart.

The men havecontinued to target the Chinese government even as they battle their own legalwoes. Mr. Guo is reportedly underinvestigation by U.S. federal authorities over fund-raising tactics at hismedia company. Mr. Bannon, who was arrestedthis summer on Mr. Guo’s yacht, is facing fraud charges for a nonprofit hehelped set up to build a wall along the Mexican border.

In Dr. Yan, thetwo men found an ideal face for their campaign.

On July 10, sherevealed her identity for the first time in a 13-minute interview on the FoxNews website. She said that the Chinese government had concealed evidence ofhuman-to-human transmission of the virus. She accused, without proof,professors at the University of Hong Kong of assisting in the cover-up. (Theuniversity quickly rejected heraccusations as “hearsay.”)

“The reason I cameto the U.S. is because I deliver the message of the truth of Covid-19,” shesaid.

She made nomention of Mr. Guo or Mr. Bannon, by design.

“Don’t linkyourself to Bannon, don’t link yourself to Guo Wengui,” Mr. Guo on his own showrecounted telling Dr. Yan. “Once you mention us, those American extremeleftists will attack and say you have a political agenda.”

After the firstFox interview, Dr. Yan embarked on a whirlwind tour of right-wing media,echoing conservative talking points. She said that she took hydroxychloroquineto ward off the virus, even though the F.D.A. had warned that it wasnot effective. She suggested that the World Health Organization helped cover upthe outbreak.

Those interviewswere amplified by social media accounts proclaiming allegiance to Mr. Guo. Theytranslated her appearances into Chinese, then posted multiple versions onYouTube and retweeted posts by other pro-Guo accounts.

Some of theaccounts have tens of thousands of followers — of a dubious nature. Many havemultiple indicators of so-called inauthentic behavior, according to an analysisby First Draft, a nonprofit that studies misinformation. The analysis foundthat they were created in the past two years, lacked background photos and haduser names that were jumbles of letters and numbers.

Collectively, thefollowers created online momentum for the conservative media world, which inturn re-energized the pro-Guo accounts. “The two are filtering and feeding offof each other,” said Anne Kruger, First Draft’s Asia Pacific director.

Going mainstream

In earlySeptember, Dr. Yan met with Dr. Daniel Lucey, an infectiousdisease expert at Georgetown University who had floated the possibility that thevirus was the product of a laboratory experiment. Dr. Lucey said Dr. Yan’s associates,who set up the meeting, wanted to find a credible scientist to endorse herclaims. “That was the only reason for bringing me there,” he said.

For more than fourhours, Dr. Yan discussed her background and research, while one of herassociates, whom Dr. Lucey declined to name, impatiently walked in and out ofthe room. He said that Dr. Yan appeared to genuinely believe that the virus hadbeen weaponized but struggled to explain why.

At the end, theassociate asked Dr. Lucey if he thought Dr. Yan had a “smoking gun.” When Dr.Lucey said no, the meeting quickly ended.

Days later, Dr.Yan released a 26-page research paper that she said proved the virus wasmanufactured. It spread rapidly online.

The paper, whichwas not peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, was posted on anonline open-access repository. It was backed by two nonprofits funded by Mr.Guo. The three other co-authors on the paper were pseudonyms for safetyreasons, according to Mr. Bannon.

Virologistsquickly dismissed the paper as “pseudoscience” and “based on conjecture.” Some worriedthat the paper — laden with charts and scientific jargon, such as “unique furincleavage site” and “RBM-hACE2 binding” — would lend her claims a veneer ofcredibility.

“It’s full ofscience-y sorts of terms that are jumbled together to sound impressive butaren’t supported,” said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, an immunologist at Johns HopkinsUniversity who was among several authors of a rebuttal to Dr. Yan’sreport.

Other misinformationabout the pandemic has also emphasized supposed expertise. In the spring, a 26-minutevideo that went viral featured a discredited American scientist accusinghospitals of inflating virus-related deaths. A July video showed people inwhite coats, calling themselves “America’s doctors” and suggesting that maskswere ineffective; the video was removed by social media platforms for sharingfalse information.

On Sept. 15, a dayafter her report was published, Dr. Yan secured her biggest stage yet: anappearance with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Mr. Carlson’s popular show hasfrequently served as an influential megaphone for the right.

Mr. Carlson askedif Dr. Yan believed Chinese officials had released the virus intentionally orby accident. Dr. Yan did not hesitate.

“Of courseintentionally,” she said.

The clip wentviral.

Footage of theirinterview racked up at least 8.8 million views online, even though Facebook andInstagram flagged it as false information. High-profileconservatives, including Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, shared it onTwitter. When the Rev. Franklin Graham, the evangelist supporter of Mr. Trump,posted about Dr. Yan on Facebook, it became the most-shared link posted by aU.S.-based Facebook account that day.

Lou Dobbs, anotherFox host, tweeted a video of himself and a guest discussing Dr. Yan’s “greatcase.” Mr. Trump retweeted it.

Dr. Yan waswelcomed by an audience already primed to hear her claims. A March poll found that nearly 30 percent of Americansbelieved the virus was most likely made in a lab.

“Once TuckerCarlson picks it up, it’s not fringe anymore,” said Yotam Ophir, a professor atthe University at Buffalo who studies disinformation. “It’s now mainstream.”

Fox News declinedto comment.

Weeks later, Mr.Carlson said on his show that he could not endorse Dr. Yan’s theories.Regardless, he welcomed her back as a guest to detail her latest claim: Hermother, she told him, had been arrested by the Chinese government.

The Chinesegovernment often punishes critics by harassing their families. But when TheTimes reached Dr. Yan’s mother on her cellphone in October, she said that shehad never been arrested and was desperate to connect with her daughter, whomshe had not spoken to in months.

She declined tosay more and asked not to be named, citing fears that Dr. Yan was beingmanipulated by her new allies.

“They are blockingour daughter from talking to us,” her mother said, referring to Mr. Guo and Mr.Wang. “We want our daughter to know that she can video-chat with us at anytime.”