CABLE
Cable: China Virus Institute Welcomes More U.S. Cooperation on Global Health Security
Provenance: Document number <b>18 WUHAN 38</b> · American Consulate Wuhan to SecState Washington · 5 pages · references 18 BEIJING 138 (item 66) and four other posts.
The 2018 Wuhan cable — widely reported since as a State Department warning about the laboratory. Read in full, its recommendation is the opposite of disengagement.
The summary paragraph calls WIV a key partner for the United States in protecting global health security, and says its role operating the newly launched BSL-4 lab opens further opportunities for expert exchange "especially in light of the lab’s shortage of trained staff."
It recommends that, given the legacy of SARS and the likelihood the next pandemic originates in China, the United States should prioritise expanding its already significant cooperation with the institute — including the Global Virome Project and possible trilateral US–China–EU projects.
Institute researchers briefed visiting Counsellor Rick Switzer and Consul General Jamie Fouss in late March; the institute had also hosted NIH, NSF and University of Texas Medical Branch visitors that year.
The cable records that the lab’s own English brochure highlighted a national security role — improving China’s readiness should a biological warfare or terrorist attack occur — and that the facility began in 2004 as a France–China joint project, entirely China-funded and China-run since a 2016 handover.
NIH is named as a major funder, with the Natural Science Foundation of China, of SARS-origin research by Shi Zhengli and Cui Jie; Shi describes Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance as a strong partner providing statistical modelling support to assess crossover risk.
The safety concern and the cooperation recommendation are the same sentence. Items 4 and 8 characterise these cables as warnings about inadequate safety measures; the cable itself supports the staffing observation and the engagement recommendation together.
Item 65 of the ODNI COVID-19 document release of 18 June 2026, held complete and readable in the V.A.D.E.S. archive at DEFROST.WORLD.