A report from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) outlined the nation’s preparedness for biosecurity threats.
Prior to the report’s August release, the DOD said it would put forth an extra $300 million per year over the next five years for biological threat preparedness.
The 2023 Biodefense Posture Review says China is the “pacing challenge” for the DOD, meaning that China challenges U.S. defense.
In order to defend against biological threats, the report put forth four goals: “Defend the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC);” “Deter strategic attacks against the United States and its allies and partners;” “Deter aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary – prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific region, then the Russia challenge in Europe;” “Build a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.”
In describing biological weapons threats, the report noted, “The United States has compliance concerns with respect to PRC military medical institutions’ toxin research and development given their potential as a biothreat.”
“The PRC has also released plans to make China the global leader in technologies like genetic engineering, precision medicine, and brain sciences. These Chinese publications have called biology a new domain of war.”
The U.S. government also believes that “North Korea and Russia maintain offensive biological weapons programs in violation of Biological Weapons and Toxins Convention (BWC) obligations and identifies concerns with Iran’s activities and its compliance with the BWC.”
Reporting from The Epoch Times:
Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a notice barring the Wuhan Institute of Virology from federal funding for 10 years over its gain-of-function experiments. That notice came as House Republicans pushed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to comply with a congressional investigation into COVID-19 origins. Meanwhile, the UK confirmed Monday that its upcoming global summit on artificial intelligence would focus on the potential for AI to create bioweapons, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunk warned of a "small window" to address the threat.
