1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"
2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab
3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1]
[1]https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly...
There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of "we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus," but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research.
My personal feeling is that these statements are true:
* The virus is unlikely to have been engineered (in the way I described above) and leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was the result of gain of function research and it leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was a natural research sample and it leaked.
* There is circumstantial evidence the virus was introduced by an animal/person who traveled to the wet market.
Some of these are more likely than others, and an individual's own calibration for what is likely or unlikely will probably come into play more than evidence in the short term and possibly long term as well. I can say the vast majority of us are not qualified to answer the question either way though.
Of course as an Asian person, whatever people believe in will have a direct impact on me. I remember after 9/11, the amount of awful things that were said and done to the Sikh population in my city. It didn’t matter they had literally nothing to do with the attacks. People were angry and wanted someone to blame.
I don't see how their opinion matters, since they're misinformed and orchestrated by the CCP.
The Hainan incident was caused by a Chinese fighter pilot running into a US surveillance plane. The former is agile, the latter is not, so that's the fault of the fighter.
Also, a plane in distress doesn't need permission to land. For the CCP to make a big deal out of that when there's no other runway available shows their true nature - evil and authoritarian.
The CCP has been at war with the US since the 1950s over ideology. If the US was not their enemy, the CCP would just pick another country.
I've noticed that otherwise intelligent people seem to place significance in "man in the street" conversations with people who live in totalitarian countries and have no power.
There's a phrase for that, useful idiot:
America has made a lot of enemies and inflicted a lot of damage and terror for what seems as both good and bad reasons. After all the one-sided "interventions", I find it hard to disagree that America (not the Americans affected) deserved something in return.