I find this whole thing odd, since it was quite some time we have such a powerful virus. I have 4 theories.

1. Natural disaster. It could be just bad luck, like the Spanish flu, the plague etc.

2. US biological attack against China. China's rise will end 400 years of western hegemony, the USA wants to put a stop to this, but have failed in previous attempts to derail China's economy. When they stopped Chinese getting access to advanced technology, the Chinese just developed their own. When they tried to get other countries to not sign up for 5G, or belt and road, most refused. When they tried to organise riots in Hong Kong, expecting the Chinese army to step in, Xi played it cool and let the riots subside. A direct military attack is too costly due to China's large and modern military, so the only remaining option is biological warfare - it cannot be traced back to them, their media can make it sound like it is China's fault (by saying the Chinese eat bats), and the panic would shut down China's economy. Here is what I find odd - the virus targets a protein called ACE2, highly expressed in Chinese people. The virus outbreak occurred during spring festival, just when lots of Chinese were travelling. The US govt tried very hard to make it look like it came from China, perhaps to deflect blame from themselves? Also China had several outbreaks of swine flu, greatly lowering the pork supplies.

3. Chinese biological attack on their own to avert a much bigger disaster - a Sino-US war. The 2020's is effectively America's last chance to strike China, as China's military is rapidly modernising, and may reach parity with the US as early as the late 2020s. Although the USA has some economic issues, it's military is still extremely powerful: 500 stealth planes vs China's 50, 11 aircraft carriers vs 2 in China, 80 advanced destroyers vs China's 30, 3000 modern combat aircraft vs China's 1000, and a network of allies with decently sized and advanced militaries. A Sino- US war, at minimum would inflict serious damage on Chinese infrastructure, grinding economic development to a halt. Worst case scenario, the conflict goes nuclear, billions die. Perhaps president Xi got intelligence that an attack from the US and its allies are imminent, so he picked the lesser evil - release a virus in China, the virus spreads. China will handle it well, while the democratic nature of western countries, plus their arrogance will cause them to handle it badly. If hundreds of thousands die from pandemic - we can recover. If billions die and the world is radioactive - we cannot. Xi knew that after the virus, China would be intact, while the USA will be ruined after mishandling the virus outbreak - putting a stop to any plans for a Sino-US war.

4. Shadow elements not loyal to any nation - they wish to crash all businesses via lockdown, and gobble everything on the cheap. What are your thoughts, which one is most plausible?

https://archive.is/z7cTN