(CNN) Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research, amid US-China row on virus origin. The article quotes a researcher:

“I think it is a coordinated effort from (the) Chinese government to control (the) narrative, and paint it as if the outbreak did not originate in China,” the researcher told CNN. “And I don’t think they will really tolerate any objective study to investigate the origination of this disease.”

Could we have hit a nerve with Intelligence Community and COVID-19 Wuhan Patient Zero — for Junkies Only ?

To everybody outside of China, it’s too late to rewrite history.  This does not vitiate the importance of the question of why Beijing has decided to try. Widely disparate motives are possible:

• The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market could be an example of severe regulatory incompetence, with graft lubricating commerce even when infection was evident.
• There really are mass graves of village dead, or documented traffic of crematoriums working overtime, resulting from minimal medical care and cover-up. The  misdeeds of local officials, these could still provoke national rage. Historic Chinese culture venerates the farmer, reflected in the Tang Criminal Code.
• The least dramatic, the futile attempt to rewrite history.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. So does the National Reconnaissance Office.