Update: The tweet from Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijan Rep. Gallagher was responding to is now "unavailable" and "this page no longer exists" because Zhao took down and put up a different tweet.
In a statement provided to Townhall, Rep. Gallagher said: I "couldn't help but notice that the Wolf Warriors deleted their tweets after I called out their lacking geography skills. It's start, but if they really want to make it up to Wisconsin, they can delete their claims on Taiwan, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang."
On Wednesday, a sitting member of Congress, along with the entire state of Wisconsin, was targeted by the Chinese Communist Party over Twitter. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijan, tweeted that Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who has been one of the most vocal members of Congress to call out the CCP over the coronavirus, should "go to Fort Detrick, just an hour's drive from Wisconsin." His suggestion was to investigate if the Wuhan virus, which originated in Wuhan, originated in the United States.
"I would like to ask the congressman you mentioned whether he paid enough attention to the outbreak of large-scale EVALI in Wisconsin in July 2019? The world has yet to see a clear conclusion about the disease. Does he think this is a systematic 'cover-up' by the United States?" the spokesperson had asked. Zhao even claimed "the real systematic cover-up is from no one but the United States."
Gallagher called the CCP's suggestions "gaslighting in its purest form."
Mike Gallagher, US Representative for Wisconsin, accused China of a "systematic coverup" on COVID-19. Why not go to Fort Detrick, to find out why EVALI broke out in Wisconsin around the same time research was suspended at Fort Detrick? pic.twitter.com/fSNo6EoiMg
— Lijian Zhao ??? (@zlj517) June 24, 2021
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Gallagher had authored an op-ed for Fox News, "Truth on COVID, China – here's why world needs answers about what happened at Wuhan."
Hi @zlj517 and @MFA_China! Thank you for drawing attention to my article on China's Chernobyl. Since I know geography is not the CCP's strong suit, I made a helpful video explainer. Try to do better next time, and while you're at it, free the Uyghurs. https://t.co/Fr15QxzRap pic.twitter.com/DQIU2FWDJD
— Rep. Mike Gallagher (@RepGallagher) June 23, 2021
In an epic four minute video, Rep. Gallagher provides not only a geography lesson about the distance and differences between Wisconsin and Maryland's Fort Detrick, but China and the separate country of Taiwan, as a matter of "basic geography [which] would help us clarify this debate in this discussion." The congressman discussed the latter as a way to "put [the discussion] in more immediate geographic terms" for the CCP.
It was not merely for geographic reasons that the congressman chose to highlight differences between China and Taiwan, though.
"And on this map you'll see China, a massive country of 1.4 billion people, Taiwan, a country of 24 million people. China, a country run by a genocidal, totalitarian regime, spreading crazy propaganda, and Taiwan, a democracy, flourishing," the congressman pointed out.
In a move which surely ticked off the CCP, the congressman pointed to China and then Taiwan, saying "China produced the coronavirus pandemic, Taiwan produces semi-conductors. China, not China. China, not China."
The congressman closed by calling it a "tragedy" that while the CCP "distracts" using their "propaganda," Chinese citizens don't have the same knowledge and "basic access to information," because the CCP is afraid of its citizens knowing that truth.
As the congressman pointed out, the drive between Wisconsin and Fort Detrick would actually take 14 hours.
Rep. Gallagher has had a busy month in calling out the CCP, in addition to that op-ed.
As Townhall covered, with comment from the congressman, he co-authored a resolution urging the International Olympic Committee to find a different city for the 2022 Olympic Games, still currently scheduled in Beijing.
Rep. Gallagher also introduced the COVID-19 Act of 2021on Tuesday, which Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced on Monday in the Senate.
According to a Tuesday press release from the congressman's office:
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) today introduced the COVID-19 Act of 2021, a bill that would authorize sanctions and other restrictions on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) affiliated scientists if the CCP fails to allow a transparent, international investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The bill would also prohibit any gain-of-function research cooperation between any Chinese individuals and institutions and any individual or institution in the United States that receives federal funding.
In addition to their unleashing of the pandemic on the world, the CCP is also carrying out acts of genocide against the Uyghurs, which the congressman makes reference to in his tweet and which he has spoken out about before.
Zhao tweeted a propaganda video attempting to dispel the claims, as the CCP has done in the past, that the Chinese is enslaving Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps.
An interesting cartoon tells you how hard it is to have a reasonable conversation with a liar who knows exactly himself is lying. pic.twitter.com/kBomBTv9ot
— Lijian Zhao ??? (@zlj517) June 23, 2021
Rep. Gallagher has been highlighting the increasing likelihood that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He also spoke with Townhall last month about such theories and the crucial need of getting to the truth, though he believes the WHO investigation into the origin has been "corrupted."
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