In 2009, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a cause for "biological weapons proliferation concern."
The leaked State Department cable, obtained by Wikileaks, was sent from in June 2009, ahead of the Australia Group plenary session in Paris, September 21-25 of that year. According to Human Events, The Australia Group is "an international export control forum with the goal of preventing the spread of research and technology that could be used in biological and chemical weapons."
The cable was sent to embassies in all member nations of the group including, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The cable, signed CLINTON at the bottom stated, "We believe it is important to focus on emerging chemical and biological technologies, trends in the trade of CBW-related goods and threats."
"The US believes AG members would be interested in any information you can share related to China and North Korea, specifically information related to:
- China’s Institutes of Biological Products (locations in Beijing and Wuhan), to include overhead imagery analysis, if possible.
- Your perceptions of the CBW proliferation activities by Chinese entities.
- Your perceptions of Chinese government efforts to enforce its export control rules."
Secretary Clinton added in a cable to France, "The US believes participants would benefit from hearing about your experiences assisting China in setting up a Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from the export control and intangible technology transfer perspectives."
Clinton added, "We are particularly interested to know how China plans to vet incoming foreign researchers from countries of biological weapons proliferation concern."
According to Human Events, Clinton has not spoken publicly of these concerns or the cable, but has regularly accused those that validate and discuss the Wuhan lab leak theory as racists, blaming them for anti-Asian violence.