Congress has been warned to be on high alert for Chinese spies after a suspected Beijing espionage plot was uncovered in British parliament.

Earlier this week, a parliamentary researcher with links to MPs with classified information was arrested for ‘spying for China.’ 

The suspect is thought to be linked to numerous Conservative members of Parliament – including Security Minister Tom Tugendhat and Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Alicia Kearns.

According to reports, several of the members with links to the suspected spy are ‘privy to classified or highly sensitive information’, however none have been accused of wrongdoing.

The suspect, who was arrested under the Official Secrets Act, has not been charged, and has said he is ‘completely innocent.’ He has not been named by police. 

The suspected breach sparked a Metropolitan Police investigation and led to MI5 warning more operatives could be working in the highest levels of British democracy. Now the United States has been warned it could be a target.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Communist Party, told DailyMail.com that educating members of Congress about the threat of infiltration is critical – especially in light of the recent UK incident.

‘One thing we’re trying to do here on the Select Committee is to educate people -members and staff- about the nature of not only traditional CCP espionage but United Front work,’ he said. 

‘I think United Front work is a poorly understood phenomenon. I don’t think your average member understands what it is. The more we can educate members about this phenomenon, the better they can defend themselves.’

The United Front is the political strategy utilized by the CCP to advance China’s influence and power globally through a variety of methods, including by deploying spies to try to change policies of foreign nations to be more pro-China or gain sensitive information. 

Congress has be infiltrated by Chinese spies attempting to get access to classified information in recent years. 

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s ties to a suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang, known as ‘Fang Fang,’ sparked an Ethics Committee investigation into his conduct.

The committee ended up not taking any disciplinary action against Swalwell, but issued a letter warning lawmakers about the threat of foreign infiltration.

‘Members should be conscious of the possibility that foreign governments may attempt to secure improper influence through gifts and other interactions,’ the letter stated.

Fang Fang left China to go to college in the U.S. in 2011, and then worked on developing relationships with key lawmakers, including Swalwell, in order to get access to sensitive information. 

She reportedly raised money for his 2014 campaign and attended a number of events that the congressman attended.

The FBI, who was investigating Fang Fang, first brought their concerns to the congressman in 2015. At that point, Swalwell said he broke off any contact with the suspected spy.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy kicked Swalwell off of the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year due to his Fang Fang connection.

But Swalwell isn’t the only lawmaker who has fallen for the ploy.

A former aide to Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., who worked as her driver in California for 20 years was found to have ties to the CCP.

Feinstein was chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time. 

She insisted that the spy ‘never had access to classified or sensitive information or legislative matters’ and was let go after the FBI informed her that her office was infiltrated.

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., put the two Democrats on blast for falling for China’s ‘sophisticated’ spy network.

‘Communist China has a sophisticated and enormous global spy network that has already breached the highest levels of government like in the cases of Senator Feinstein’s aide or the targeting of Congressman Swalwell,’ said Waltz.

Waltz said he met with Canadian member of Parliament Michael Chong who has also been targeted by the Chinese. 

‘We’ll continue to press the intelligence community on their operations to combat these espionage efforts and safeguard members of Congress.’

Waltz sits on the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees. 

Experts say that it is easier for Chinese spies to get access to American secrets through U.S. lawmakers than most think.

Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society think tank in the UK, told Dailymail.com that Chinese spy infiltration in Congress ‘could easily happen in the U.S.’ because ‘nobody had really understood it could happen in such a spectacular way here.

‘Who’s to say there aren’t people the U.S. and other Western democracies who have been turned, and who may well be involved in Chinese influence operations or spying for China.’

‘It’s similar to what the Russians used to do, sending proper spies who were not obviously connected to the regime,’ Mendoza continued.

‘It seems unlikely China isn’t going to do that.’

He urged Congress to be ‘more alert’ to the ‘dangers’ of Chinese efforts and treat it on the same level as Russia.

‘It’s difficult to stop someone completely disconnected and able to cover their tracks.’

Mendoza said politicians should look closely at the backgrounds of people they are hiring.

‘If you have spent a considerable amount of time in China that should be a red flag that should mean you dig into someone’s background.

‘An incident like tis reminds us to be vigilant and double down on our processes.

‘We don’t want to be alarmist and have a reds under the beds McCarthyite position (but) sometimes we are not alert to obvious signs.’

Rishi Sunak has told his Chinese counterpart of his ‘significant concerns’ about Beijing‘s interference in British democracy amid claims of spying in Parliament.

The Prime Minister confronted Chinese premier Li Qiang during an informal discussion at the G20 summit in India.

It comes after two men were arrested under the Official Secrets Act amid allegations that a parliamentary researcher spied for China.

The researcher reportedly had links to several senior Tory MPs, including security minister Tom Tugendhat and Alicia Kearns, the chair of the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee.

A No 10 spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister met Premier Li Qiang and conveyed his significant concerns about Chinese interference in the UK’s parliamentary democracy.’ 

The Briton was arrested along with another man by officers on March 13 on suspicion of spying for Beijing, it was revealed by the Sunday Times.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, which oversees espionage-related offences, are investigating.

One of the men, in his 30s, was detained in Oxfordshire on March 13, while the other, in his 20s, was arrested in Edinburgh, Scotland Yard said.

Both were held on suspicion of offences under section one of the Official Secrets Act 1911, which punishes offences that are said to be ‘prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state’.

‘Searches were also carried out at both the residential properties, as well as at a third address in east London,’ a statement from the Met Police said.

Both men were held at a south London police station until being bailed until early October.

Mr Tugendhat is said not to have had any contact with the researcher since before he became security minister in September last year.

Ms Kearns declined to comment, adding: ‘While I recognise the public interest, we all have a duty to ensure any work of the authorities is not jeopardised.’

According to the newspaper, the researcher held a parliamentary pass and worked with MPs on international policy, including relations with Beijing, for several years. 

Mr Sunak has been under pressure from Tory MPs to take a tougher stance on China after he stopped short of formally declaring Beijing a ‘threat’.

The PM has instead referred to China as an ‘epoch-defining challenge’ to the West.

Earlier this year, Parliament’s intelligence watchdog warned that Chinese spies are targeting Britain ‘prolifically and aggressively’ with Beijing managing to penetrate ‘every sector of the economy’.

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) warned the UK is of ‘significant interest to China when it comes to espionage and interference’, placing the country ‘just below China’s top priority targets’.

Justice Secretary Alex Chalk this morning warned that China had to be taken ‘extremely seriously’ but insisted the UK had to ‘engage’ with Beijing.

Risking a slip-up over Mr Sunak’s preferred choice of language when referring to China, Mr Chalk told Sky News: ‘The PM has been very clear when it comes to China, it’s an epoch-defining threat… challenge, forgive me.

‘So of course we’ve got to take it extremely seriously and I know the police and, no doubt, other agencies will take it seriously as well and let’s learn whatever lessons need to be learned.’

He added: ‘You can’t wish China away, China is the world’s second-biggest economy.

‘If we are going to meet the challenge of climate change, we can’t do it without China.

‘They’re responsible for about 27 or 28 per cent of emissions, we’re about one per cent.

‘So we have to engage but we do so with our eyes open.

‘That’s why we take steps such as ensuring Huawei is out of our 5G network, at the same time recognising there’s a sensible engagment to have and that’s the position we’re in.’

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, an outspoken critic of China who has been sanctioned by Beijing, said there were ‘big questions to be asked about parliamentary security’.

He also warned Britain had been ‘deeply penetrated by the Chinese because of our ambivalent attitude towards them’, as he demanded a ‘change in position’ from the Government towards Beijing.

Sir Iain told Times Radio: ‘It is a significant breach in security. It’s a significant breach in security in parliamentary terms.

‘So there are big questions to be asked about parliamentary security, about the vetting of people who work for different groups that are made up of parliamentarians.’

He added: ‘I think we are deeply penetrated by the Chinese because of our ambivalent attitude towards them. Therefore, people tend to turn a blind eye. 

‘You know, people like me get criticised because we make too much of this and then you see this happening.

‘If you can penetrate parliament like this over such a long period of time…  then how many other institutions with less levels of security are being penetrated on a daily basis?’

Arm has raised alarm bells about China as it gears up for the biggest stock market listing in the US for nearly two years.

The Cambridge-based chip designer – which is owned by Japanese investor SoftBank – revealed it was ‘particularly susceptible to economic and political risks’ in China, where it rakes in nearly a quarter of its revenues.

In a 330-page document outlining plans for a £50billion initial public offering in New York next month, Arm spent more than 3,500 words detailing how the growing tensions between the Biden administration and Beijing were already hampering its performance.

The US recently limited China’s access to new technology and investment through a series of sanctions – fanning the flames of a trade war.

Arm said sales made by divisions including Arm China slumped by £21million over the three months to June.

The figure included around £9million which it blamed on ‘trade protection and national security policies’ from the US.

And the company warned this situation would only get worse as its relationship with its independent Chinese business – which is majority owned by local investors rather than SoftBank – remains shaky.

‘We depend on our commercial relationship with Arm China to access the People’s Republic of China [PRC] market,’ the filing said.

‘If that commercial relationship no longer existed or deteriorates, our ability to compete in the PRC market could be materially and adversely affected’.

The warning came as Arm confirmed it was on track to be the most valuable company to complete an IPO since November 2021, when electric-car maker Rivian hit Wall Street.

And some analysts have said it is precisely because of the uncertain US-Sino backdrop that SoftBank opted for the Nasdaq rather than London to make Arm’s stock-market comeback.

‘New York is the safety-blanket path for listings especially big tech names like Arm,’ said Dan Ives, tech analyst at investment bank Wedbush. ‘Given the geopolitical headwinds and regulatory issues in China, all flight paths for IPOs now lead to New York.’

SoftBank took Arm private for £24billion in 2016, removing it from the London Stock Exchange.

Although it had hoped to sell Arm to US chip firm Nvidia in 2020, the £31billion deal collapsed due to regulatory blocks.

The UK then undertook an intense lobbying effort to convince SoftBank to have a dual listing in London and New York.

SoftBank snubbed these efforts, claiming the US was the ‘best path forward’ for Arm.

Yet the move has raised serious questions for the City and its ability to attract bumper IPOs. Despite health company Haleon’s £30billion float last summer, FTSE valuations have suffered in recent years.

Some blame a ‘Brexit discount’, which has spooked international investors, and others slam London as a ‘Jurassic Park’ index due to its lack of stocks in new industries such as fintech and artificial intelligence.

The world’s largest building materials company CRH has warned it is going to move its primary stock market listing to New York, and gambling giant Flutter is gearing up to list there in the autumn.

According to data compiled by media group Bloomberg, fewer than £790million has been raised on the London stock market this year, the worst performance since 2009.

Meanwhile, the United States largely remains a safe bet for many companies who are looking for faster processes and higher valuations.

To emphasise the latter, Apple – which is America’s most valuable company – is worth nearly £1bn more than all the firms on the FTSE 100 combined.

‘Price seems to be the driving factor for SoftBank,’ explained Russ Mould, analyst at AJ Bell, who said that the Japanese conglomerate’s boss Masayoshi Son would also be looking to prove himself with this float.

He said: ‘SoftBank will be looking to show it can still make successful investments after a string of embarrassing duds, most notably [co-working space firm] WeWork and [crypto trading platform] FTX. Son will be out to prove that SoftBank’s track record is a good one.’

Arm will also be in good company across the Atlantic – the US is home to chip giants such as Nvidia and Intel.

By contrast, London has been on a mission to loosen its IPO rules to boost deal making, which includes giving founders greater control and removing financial reporting barriers.

Victoria Scholar, analyst at Interactive Investor, said: ‘While proposed changed to listing rules in London could help to bolster its appeal as a go-to destination for global IPOs, there’s still work to be done on its international perception.

‘London needs to work on fostering exciting fresh companies in fintech, renewable energy and artificial intelligence and prove that it’s just as important a global financial hub post Brexit as it was before.’

It is still possible, however, that SoftBank could eventually decide to list Arm in London as a secondary listing on top of its New York one.

Teachers and parents are being warned to look out for new ‘High Light’ Chinese vapes that are designed to look like highlighter pens.

The vapes are packaged in bright neon colors that resemble typical pencil case items and come in 20 kid-friendly flavors like blueberry ice, mango and strawberry banana. 

But each device contains 50 milligrams of nicotine, the equivalent of 50 cigarettes and a level illegal in most European countries.

Nicotine can cause damage to children’s lungs and brains, as well as cause nicotine addiction, lung damage, gum disease and oral cancers. 

It comes amid a school vape epidemic that is expected to get worse when the new term begins in September. Data has shown that more than 2.5 million US children use e-cigarettes.

Previous research has shown that the average teen vaper in America starts aged 13, which has gotten lower since 2014. 

The vapes are made by Shenzhen Amdecig Technology based in Shenzhen, China.

The company website claims the devices are ‘not for minors’, but packaging and flavors are geared towards a younger audience.

Minou Jones, chair of the Detroit Wayne Oakland Tobacco-Free Coalition, told Fox 2: ‘Youth are hiding the use of these products in schools and from their parents which makes it very dangerous.’

Disposable vapes appear to be the e-cigarette of choice among youngsters, with most purchasing them from bodegas.

It is illegal in the US to sell vapes to under-21s, but many minors are still able to get their hands on them.

‘Because our jobs aren’t hard enough,’ high school English teacher Dawn Finley from Missouri wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). ‘These are vape pens and not highlighters.’

Stefan Bjes, a patrol sergeant who has served with a Chicago police department for over 19 years, and previously served as a school resource officer, told Fox News the vapes are ‘pouring in from China and are completely unregulated.

‘Since they are unregulated, they could contain dangerous substances that can cause long-term damage to users.’

The officer added: ‘There is no way of knowing their nicotine content or what else may be in them.

‘We know the Chinese manufacturers of these illegal disposable vapes are also making and trafficking to the United States.’

He strongly advised parents to explain the dangers of vapes to their children and for teachers to be on the lookout for disguised vapes in schools.

Early studies that warned of their harmful effects were dismissed as outliers at first, or slammed as disinformation spread by the tobacco industry suddenly threatened by the arrival of smokeless nicotine products.

But scientific evidence pointing to their harmful effects has piled up and shows they cause nearly or as much damage as traditional cigarettes.

CDC figures claimed at least 2.6million US children are hooked on e-cigarettes, reversing a downward trend in recent years.

The report found that 2.55 million middle or high schoolers had used the device within the past 30 days.

That marks a jump of 500,000, or of 24 percent, from 2021. It is the first increase since 2019.

Super-strength disposable devices — like Elf bars — were the most common type of device used (55 percent).

The vast majority of children (85 percent) had used flavored e-cigarettes that federal regulators have cracked down on in recent years amid concerns they are purposefully marketing themselves to children.

Millions of US taxpayer dollars are being sent to shady laboratories in China to fund cruel and dangerous experiments on animals.

Records show more than $15 million in government grants has funded animal experiments in foreign labs from 2013 to this year, despite concerns that dubious Chinese research may have started the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some of the US-sponsored research involved gathering dangerous avian flu viruses from China’s wet markets and infecting chickens, ducks, and guinea pigs to ‘supercharge’ the viruses and make them more transmissible.  

While not technically illegal, research in China is not subjected to the same stringent ethical and safety protocols in the US.

A previous watchdog oversight investigation found grant money sent to Chinese labs is often subject to little or no oversight.

From fiscal years 2021 to 2023, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), America’s primary agency for medical and public health research and response, awarded 15 grants totaling $3.6 million to institutions in China that perform experiments on animals.

In that same time, the NIH provided at least 92 sub-awards worth $12.5 million to institutions in China.

A sub-award allows another organization to perform some activities for the NIH grant under the NIH’s supervision. 

For example, in some instances, the NIH awarded a grant to an educational institute, which then sent money to Chinese entities performing animal experiments with no oversight.

Federal spending data from 2020 revealed the NIH spent an estimated $140 million on animal experiments in 29 foreign countries.

Watchdog group White Coat Waste Project has been fighting to force the government to stop sending American tax dollars overseas to fund virus and drug testing on animals.

The organization was the first to discover the NIH sent millions of dollars to unmonitored and dangerous animal experiments in China and Russia.

Georgia Tech sent $770,466 of a $2.7 million NIH grant to the Kremlin-linked Pavlov Institute of Physiology, which conducted experiments on cats.

According to the WCW Project, the experiments included implanting electrodes into the cats’ spines and muscles and removing parts of their brains. The felines were also locked in metal frames and forced to walk on treadmills. They were then killed and dissected.

Additionally, between 2018 and 2020, the University of Illinois gave approximately $123,550 of a $1.6 million NIH grant and an undisclosed amount from a USDA grant to the Kremlin-linked Institute of Cytology and Genetics to study the social behavior of silver foxes on a fur farm. The foxes were housed in small and unkempt cages and then killed and dissected. 

In the US, these experiments likely wouldn’t be legal under the guidelines the government has for using animals during experiments, which include providing proper veterinary care, using appropriate anesthetics to minimize harm and using humane euthanasia methods. 

Following the WCW Project’s findings, the group was successful in getting the Biden administration to defund all animal labs in Russia earlier this year. However, animal experiments using American money have continued in China.

Now, the group has teamed up with Rep. Lisa McClain, a Republican from Michigan, to introduce the bipartisan Accountability in Foreign Animals Research (AFAR) Act.

The act was first introduced in 2021 by McClain and has since gained support from other House members, as well as gotten the attention of members of the Senate. Now, it is being reintroduced in Congress. The legislation would prevent the NIH from conducting or supporting all research on vertebrate animals in foreign countries.

Vertebrate animals are those with spinal cords and bony or cartilaginous backbones, including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. 

‘Our tax dollars should never be sent to state-run labs in adversary nations like Russia and China that threaten our national security.

‘My AFAR Act would prohibit tax dollars from being shipped to animal testing labs in any countries that are deemed foreign adversaries’, McClain said in a statement.

Recent data compiled by the WCW Project found that between 2015 and 2023, at least seven US entities supplied a portion of their NIH grant money to labs in China performing animal experiments, totaling more than $3.3 million.

Between 2015 and 2018, Emory University provided Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, which houses one of China’s dangerous high-containment bioagent labs, $515,418 of a $38.6 million Health and Human Services contract for experiments on avian flu viruses.

Researchers collected avian flu viruses from China’s wet markets and injected them into guinea pigs, mice, chickens, and ducks. Taxpayer money was also used to supercharge flu viruses, making them more transmissible. The animals were later killed and dissected.

The study continued through July 2022, years into the Covid pandemic, despite concerns about the origins of the pandemic.

In addition to providing funds to Kremlin-backed labs, the University of Illinois also supplied the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai in 2017 with $149,832 of its $1.7 million NIH grant to infect mice with tuberculosis. The mice were killed after 50 days and had their lungs dissected.

The research ended in 2019.

From 2017 to 2018, the University of South Florida shipped more than $812,900 of a $28.9 million grant it was awarded from the NIH to several Chinese entities to create mutant malaria strains and inject them into mice. The mice were then fed to mosquitoes.

The research is set to continue until March 2024.

In 2019, Eastern Virginia Medical School sent $42,452 of a $35.5 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development to the Qichun County Zhangliang Digging Machine Business Department. The funds were used to test an experimental hepatitis and HIV drug on primates.

According to a description from USA Spending, which compiles information on grants, the study states that primates will be given a ‘treatment’ and then have their plasma analyzed.

The research ran until November 2021.

Also in 2019, the University of California-Irvine gave $216,000 of a $4.3 million NIH grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to perform experiments related to neuronal tracing. Experiments included drilling holes in the skulls of mice, rats, and tree shrews and injecting herpes viruses into their brains. The study states there was ‘rapid death of injected animals’ and viral infections.

It only recently concluded in January.

With one of the largest amounts supplied to Chinese animal experiment labs, the late Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen’s Allen Institute sent nearly $1 million of its $64.7 million NIH grant to China’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2021. The study, which only ended in January, was to create an atlas of mouse brain cells. Researchers killed and sliced the brains of eight-week-old mice to analyze and map them.

As recent as February 2023, the University of Southern California funneled more than $576,400 of its $1.9 million NIH grant to Peking University for experiments in which mice had holes drilled into their skulls and viruses injected into their brains. Scientists inserted electrodes in the animals’ brains and performed imaging experiments.

The research is set to run until 2025.

While the watchdog group revealed the millions of dollars being sent overseas, Americans may never know the exact amount or the specific experiments being conducted because of an NIH loophole exempting foreign grant recipients from following certain animal care guidelines. The WCW Project is currently suing the institution over this loophole. 

In a statement, senior vice president of the WCW Project, Justin Goodman said ‘shipping taxpayer dollars to animal testing labs in China, Russia and other adversarial nations is a recipe for disaster.

‘Our Worldwide Waste campaign has defunded the Wuhan lab, Putin’s kitten tests, and all Russian animal labs, but we’ve uncovered how dozens of animal labs in China are still eligible for more taxpayer money. Over 70 percent of taxpayers—Republicans and Democrats alike—oppose this reckless spending … Stop the money. Stop the madness’.

Visitors are flocking to a zoo in eastern China to see a strange-looking bear that has gone viral online over speculation it is, in fact, a person in a costume.

Around 20,000 people a day are now going to Hanzhou Zoo, a 30 per cent rise since the video was first shared on Sunday, to judge for themselves.

Speculation broke online after Angela the sun bear was seen standing, begging for food, with the camera angle offering an unflattering view of its loose bottom fur.

Now, tens of millions have seen clips of the bear clumsily trying to catch food thrown into the enclosure by visitors and appearing to resign itself to sitting on a rock.

The zoo was quick to dismiss claims the animal playing dress-up, stressing that such deception would not happen at a state-run zoo.

New photos from the zoo show visitors gathering to see the bear as it walks around its enclosure and snacks on a mix of fruit and vegetables.

Qian Ming, one of 20,000 a day now making the pilgrimage, told local TV he had travelled 150 miles by train, from Suzhou, to see the bear. ‘We travelled overnight last night to get here,’ he said.

Another visitor, Mr You, told a local news outlet: ‘After seeing this bear standing up on the internet, I wanted to see how it looks in real life, so I came here.’

The Hangzhou Zoo has been clear that Angela is a real bear, explaining that sun bears can look a little different to what we might expect.

A spokesperson said: ‘When it comes to bears, the first thing that comes to mind is a huge figure and astonishing power.

‘But not all bears are behemoths and danger personified.’

They were also careful to dismiss claims Angela was a person in a suit, adding:

‘If you get someone to wear such thick fur in this summer heat, they won’t last more than a few minutes before they need to lie down.

‘We are a government-operated zoo. There will never be situations like that.’

Experts have also weighed in on the popular clip. Dr Ashleigh Marshall, an expert from Chester Zoo, told the BBC that the animal ‘is definitely a real bear’.

She explained that the folds on its back, assumed to be evidence of an ill-fitting costume, help protect the bear from predators, as the looseness allows the bear to ‘turn around in their skin’ and fight back if grabbed.

Others have responded to the story with concern for the bear’s welfare. 

Jason Baker, Vice President at PETA Asia, said: ‘Sun bears are living, feeling beings, not a joke, and PETA hopes that people will think about the suffering and needs of animals who spend an eternity behind bars. 

‘These highly intelligent, social animals deserve to live free and thrive in their natural environment – not be used as mere spectacles for human entertainment. 

‘PETA strongly urges Hangzhou Zoo and all similar establishments immediately to stop using sun bears or any other animals for breeding purposes. 

‘And we call on the public to support sanctuaries and wildlife reserves that prioritise the well-being of animals in their care.’

Sun bears have distinct features such as a short, sleek black coat, a pale yellowish crescent on their chests (which gives them their name), and a light-colored muzzle.

They are also known as honey bears – due to their love of honey – and dog-faced bears… for their dog-like faces.

Their big paws with hairless soles may look like feet, but are adapted to help them climb.

Sun bears are the size of large dogs, standing at most 1.3 meters (4ft 3′) tall on their hind legs – far shorter than other species.

Animal experts have rubbished claims a Chinese sun bear is, in fact, a man in a suit.

Speculation broke online after a viral clip showed the strange bear standing on two legs, drawing attention to its saggy bottom fur and stumpy little legs.

Now, a video from another angle sheds new light on the bizarre story. 

The Hangzhou Zoo in China quickly responded, writing as the four-year-old Malayan bear named Angela, ‘it seems you don’t understand me very well’.

They stressed that such deception would not happen at a state-run zoo.

Now, animal experts have weighed in on the issue. Dr Ashleigh Marshall, an expert from Chester Zoo, told the BBC that the animal ‘is definitely a real bear’.

She explained that the folds on its back, assumed to be evidence of an ill-fitting costume, help protect the bear from predators, as the looseness allows the bear to ‘turn around in their skin’ and fight back if grabbed.

The story has circulated world-over, with the zoo itself seeing a 30 per cent jump in visitors.

Mr You told a local news outlet: ‘After seeing this bear standing up on the internet, I wanted to see how it looks in real life, so I came here.’ 

Qian Ming, one of 20,000 a day now making the pilgrimage, told local TV he had travelled 150 miles by train, from Suzhou, to see the bear.

‘We travelled overnight last night to get here,’ he said. 

Hangzhou Zoo was quick to address the bear’s unusual appearance, stating: ‘When it comes to bears, the first thing that comes to mind is a huge figure and astonishing power.

‘But not all bears are behemoths and danger personified.’

A spokesperson from the zoo dismissed claims the bear was a man in a suit, adding: ‘If you get someone to wear such thick fur in this summer heat, they won’t last more than a few minutes before they need to lie down.

‘We are a government-operated zoo. There will never be situations like that.’

Temperatures in the region can reach as high as 40C (104F) in summer. 

Angela has nonetheless captured the world’s attention since Sunday, racking up more than 30 million views online. 

The zoo said that she is ‘dating’ a male bear named Dalu but ‘wants to take things slow’. 

They also asked visitors to refrain from feeding the bears. 

Sun bears have distinct features, such as a short, sleek black coat, a pale yellowish crescent on their chests (which gives them their name), and a light-colored muzzle.

They are also known as honey bears – due to their love of honey – and dog-faced bears… for their dog-like faces.

Big paws with hairless soles may look like feet, but are adapted to help them climb.

Sun bears are the size of large dogs, standing at most 1.3 meters (4ft 3′) tall on their hind legs.

Grizzlies and other species can be as tall as 2.8 metres (9ft), according to the zoo.

They are the smallest of the bear species and are native to Southeast Asia.

Although no actors have been caught dressing up as bears in this way before, in 2019 two zoo workers at Yancheng Wild Animal World in Changzhou, China, were seen wearing gorilla costumes and jumping around.

The zoo said it was an April Fools’ prank after receiving a number of complaints. 

MailOnline contacted Hangzhou Zoo for comment.

China has discovered two new coronaviruses lurking in bats – and state-funded virologists are parading them as proof Covid did not leak from a lab.

Both pathogens harbour the same genetic quirk believed to make the pandemic-causing strain so infectious.

Until SARS-CoV-2 spawned in China towards the end of 2019, no sarbecoviruses (the virus family it belongs to) had even been found to have a ‘furin cleavage site’.

Experts argued this oddity pointed to the pandemic as having a man-made origin, challenging Beijing‘s insistence that it emerged naturally.

However, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention-backed researchers said their discovery ‘deepens our understanding of the diversity of coronaviruses’.

Sharing their findings in a scientific journal, they argued it ‘strongly’ indicates SARS-CoV-2’s furin cleavage site ‘naturally originated’.

They wrote the discovery: ‘Provides clues about the natural origin of the furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2.’

But independent experts said the study cannot draw such a conclusion as the viruses discovered aren’t actually that closely related to Covid.   

Neither of the two viruses, known as CD35 and CD36, have yet been proven capable of infecting humans.

This prospect requires ‘further investigation’, according to the researchers, who were funded indirectly by President Xi Jinping’s communist regime through China’s national research and development programme.

Dr Richard Ebright, a biologist at Rutgers University and lab leak proponent, said the paper’s conclusions do nothing to dismiss the possibility that Covid leaked from a research facility. 

‘The viruses reported in the paper are not SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses,’ he told MailOnline. 

‘They are not even sarbecoviruses (the subgenus of viruses comprising SARS-CoV-1-related and SARS-Cov-2-related viruses). 

‘The authors of the paper classify them as hibecoviruses, placing clade hibecovirus adjacent to, but distinct from, clade sarbecovirus.’

He, therefore, said that the paper cannot draw any conclusion about Covid’s unique furin cleavage site. 

‘SARS-CoV-2 is the only one of hundreds of known sarbecoviruses that has an furin cleavage site,’ he said.

‘This was true before the paper and remains true after the paper.

‘No informed person would suggest that the paper, somehow, suffices dismiss the idea that Covid emerged from a lab.’

Professor Francois Balloux, an infectious disease expert based at University College London echoed these same doubts. 

‘It’s a hibecovirus, totally unrelated to SARS-CoV-1/2,’ he told MailOnline. 

‘It carries a furin cleavage site but many coronaviruses (outside sarbecoviruses) do.

‘This paper tells us nothing about the origin of Covid. It just adds one more coronavirus species to the hundreds described to date.’

The study itself describe CD35 and CD36 as being a 54 per cent genetic match for Covid. 

This means it’s not actually that related to Covid itself.

For comparison, a virus called RaTG13 collected from bats in China in 2013 is a 96 per cent match and has no furin cleavage site. 

Scientists in the study analysed results from 112 bats captured in ‘abandoned caves’ in Baoting County, Hainan Province in Southern China in March and April in 2021. 

Of the bats collected samples from 7 (6.3 per cent) tested positive for coronaviruses.

CD35 and CD36 were found in samples taken from great roundleaf bats, which are also known as the great Himalayan leaf-nosed bat.

The authors noted: ‘Bat CoV CD35 is so far the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2 with a polybasic furin-like site, strongly suggesting that the cleavage site is of natural origin, which provides clues to the evolutionary origin of the furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2.’

They added that as great roundleaf bats have a wide geographic distribution, being found in southern China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Malaysia, this means CD35 could be circulating widely. 

Five of the paper’s ten authors were affiliated with the Chinese CDC – Beijing’s equivalent of the UK Health Security Agency or US organisation of the same name.

The discovery itself was published in Virologica Sinica, the publishing arm of the Chinese Society for Microbiology (CSM).

This society is linked to the state-affiliated China Association of Science and Technology with its website adding that it ‘accepts administrative supervision’ from the Chinese Government’s ‘Ministry of Civil Affairs’. 

Virologica Sinica is also edited by Dr Shi Zhengli, an influential scientist described as China’s ‘bat woman’ who works inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – considered to be the source of the Covid pandemic in some corners.

Its editorial board also features over a dozen other academics linked to the WIV.

And the study can count a British zoologist whose organisation funded research at the WIV, and central to the debate about Covid’s origins, among its fans.

Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, which directed millions of US Government cash to fund experiments at the Chinese lab Tweeted about the study:  ‘Happy Saturday! Here’s a newly discovered bat β-CoV with a furin cleavage site from bats in Hainan Province China.

He also quoted the study’s conclusion ‘..this study deepens our understanding of the diversity of CoVs & provides clues about the natural origin of the FCS of SARS-CoV-2.’

Dr Daszak has been passionate defender of the WIV over the course of the pandemic and has repeatedly shot down any suggestion experiments at the lab could have led to the emergence of Covid. 

The expert in zoonosis, the spread of viruses from animals to humans, hails from the mining town Dukinfield, on the outskirts of Manchester, and has been one of the central, and controversial, figures at the centre of the debate on Covid’s origin.  

He has been accused of orchestrating a behind-the-scenes ‘bullying’ campaign to ensure blame for Covid was directed away from WIV. 

This involved allegedly persuading 26 other scientists to sign off on a letter he wrote to the scientific journal The Lancet claiming the virus could only have been natural in origin and to suggest otherwise creates ‘fear, rumours, and prejudice’.

The letter was so influential that it cowed most experts into refusing even to consider that the virus could have been man-made.

It also later emerged that Dr Daszak told his fellow signatories in an email that the letter would not be sent under the EcoHealth logo to not make it identifiable as coming from any ‘one organisation’ or ‘person’. 

These emails show that he even considered not signing the letter himself, although in the end he did.

He was also accused of not declaring EcoHealth’s, and therefore his own, ties with WIV during investigations into the pandemic. 

In January 2021, Dr Daszak joined the World Health Organization (WHO) team sent to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the virus. 

The group’s report, published in March 2021, concluded it was ‘extremely unlikely’ that the virus originated in a laboratory.

But he came under fire after it emerged that he had a working relationship with Dr Shi Zhengli, a virologist at the WIV nicknamed ‘Bat Woman’, and one of the very scientists whose work he was tasked with investigating.

EcoHealth Alliance has provided at least $600,000 to WIV where research was carried out. 

Dr Daszak has previously defended his connections to WIV during investigations into Covid’s origins, arguing the probe should involve those who know the most about coronaviruses in China.  

He also chaired a group of scientists probing Covid’s origins for the medical journal The Lancet but stepped down when his link with Chinese virus research was revealed.

The lab leak theory, once dismissed as an outright conspiracy, has gained increasing traction in the years since the virus first caused a global pandemic. 

Insiders at the heart of Beijing’s response to the pandemic have also admitted that the nation quietly investigated the possibility of the virus emerging from one of its labs.

Such investigations occurred despite President Xi Jinping’s communist administration repeatedly denying the hypothesis, labelling it a smear campaign by ‘anti-China’ forces and insisting the virus emerged naturally instead. 

Back in 2020 the overwhelming opinion, shared by the world’s leading experts, was that Covid crossed naturally from animals infected with a bat coronavirus to humans.

But consensus over how the pandemic began three years ago has slowly started to shift.

Even some US intelligence officials have backed it, with FBI director Christopher Wray stating in February that the virus ‘most likely’ originated from a lab incident in Wuhan.

However, most experts maintain that Covid most likely emerged naturally, being transmitted from animals to humans – what is known as zoonosis.

Such theories have largely pointed to Wuhan’s Huanan seafood wholesale market, where numerous species of live animals were kept and sold, as the potential site where such an infection could have taken place. 

And in February 2021, an investigation into Covid’s origin by the World Health Organization said it was ‘extremely unlikely’ the virus leaked from a lab. 

But plans for a second phase of the investigation, involving audits of laboratories in the Wuhan area, were rejected by the Chinese government.

No concrete proof to support either argument has ever been found, leaving experts fearing the truth behind Covid’s origins will never be uncovered. 

Beyond being just establishing a historical fact, experts also want to find how Covid emerged to help stop other similar pathogens becoming pandemics in the future. 

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• This was barely a month after Wuhan locked down due to the outbreak 
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Published: 12:11 EDT, 17 June 2023 | Updated: 20:58 EDT, 17 June 2023

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