Happy Fifth National Security Education Day!

Some of the highlights of today’s newsletter:

• The Associated Press has a blockbuster story based on leaked documents that appear to show that senior officials were aware January 14 of the terrible potential of the novel coronavirus, and yet Xi did not issue a public warning until January 20;

• President Trump announced that the US is suspending payments to the WHO “while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus…The WHO’s reliance on China’s disclosures likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that”. If the US decides to end the halt on funding after the review, will one of the changes it demands be that Taiwan has its observer status restored? And if the WHO has a funding crisis because of the US suspension, why wouldn’t Beijing step into the breech and cover the shortfall?;

• The move against the WHO appears …