China Origin Virus ID-19

China Detains Activist Who Accused Xi Jinping of Chinese Coronavirus Cover-Up
Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal activist, went silent over the weekend. His girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, a social activist, has gone missing.
Javier C. Hernández

Xu Zhiyong in Beijing in 2009.

He portrayed China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, as hungry for power.

He accused Xi of trying to cover up the Chinese coronavirus outbreak in central China. 

In one of his most daring writings, he urged Xi to resign, saying, “You’re just not smart enough.”
Then, over the weekend, Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal activist, went silent. 

The authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou detained him on Saturday, according to Mr. Xu’s friends, after he spent nearly two months in hiding. 

His girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, a social activist, went missing on Sunday, Mr. Xu’s friends said.
The activist is the latest critic to be caught up in Xi’s far-reaching efforts to limit dissent in China. 

The crackdown, which has ensnared scores of activists, lawyers, journalists and intellectuals, is likely to intensify as the ruling Communist Party comes under broad attack for its handling of the Chinese coronavirus outbreak, one of its biggest political challenges in years.
Mr. Xu, a 46-year-old former university lecturer, has long railed against government corruption and social injustice in China. 

He went into hiding in December as the police began rounding up human rights activists who met with him in the eastern city of Xiamen.
While in hiding, Mr. Xu continued to publish blunt critiques of Xi on social media, accusing him of leading a dictatorship.

He also criticized Xi’s handling of the outbreak in the central province of Hubei that has killed at least 1,770 people in China and sickened more than 70,000. 

In one of his last writings before he was detained, Mr. Xu mourned the death of a doctor in Wuhan whom the police had silenced after he warned about the virus.

“In their hearts,” Mr. Xu said of party leaders, “there is no right and wrong, no conscience, no bottom line, no humanity.”
Mr. Xu, a firebrand who has spent decades pushing for political reforms, has long clashed with the Chinese government.
He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 for “gathering a crowd to disturb public order,” a charge that stemmed from his role organizing the New Citizens Movement, a grass-roots effort against corruption and social injustice in Chinese society.
It is unclear what charges the authorities might bring against Mr. Xu. 

The circumstances of the disappearance of his girlfriend, Ms. Li, were also ambiguous. 

The police in Guangzhou did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Xu’s friends defended his actions.
“It is within the scope of freedom of speech under the Chinese Constitution,” said Hua Ze, an activist based in New Jersey and a friend of Mr. Xu who confirmed his detention.
Faced with growing public anger over the Chinese coronavirus outbreak, China’s leader has cited a need to “strengthen the guidance of public opinion,” a term that often refers to blocking independent news reporting and censoring critical comments on Chinese social media.
Many free-speech activists worry that the party, which is concerned about maintaining its control, is tightening the reins of public discourse despite a growing perception that the silencing of doctors and others who tried to raise alarms has enabled the Chinese virus to spread more widely.
Two video bloggers who attracted wide attention for their dispatches from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, have gone missing.
Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization, said the detention of Mr. Xu showed that the authorities had no intention of loosening restrictions on speech.
“The Chinese government persists in its old ways: silencing its critics rather than listening to people who promote rights-respecting policies that actually solve problems,” she said.

From Beijing to Hampstead: how tale of HIV whistleblower rattled Chinese state

Officials pile pressure on family of crusading doctor whose exposure of a 1990s cover-up is now hitting the stage

By Vanessa Thorpe

The King of Hell’s Palace, opening at the Hampstead Theatre, was inspired by Dr Shuping Wang’s true story.

Chinese security officials have been accused of targeting a whistleblower’s family and friends in a campaign to force a theatre to abandon a play based on her case.
Dr Shuping Wang, who exposed the spread of hepatitis and HIV infection through contaminated blood and plasma in China two decades ago, has said her relatives and former colleagues in Henan province are being told they should persuade her to drop the show at the London’s Hampstead Theatre.
She said the incident had revived memories of the original whistleblowing, but was determined that the show, The King of Hell’s Palace, should go ahead. 

“The only thing harder than standing up to the government and their security police is not giving in to pressure from friends and relatives who are threatened with their livelihoods, all because you are speaking out,” she said. 

“But even after all this time, I will still not be silenced, even though I am deeply sad that this intimidation is happening yet again.”
Wang said officials had also tried to obtain contact details for her daughter, in an attempt to exert pressure on her. 

“I am particularly concerned for my daughter, who is very scared about being approached,” she said, adding that former colleagues in Beijing were afraid to answer her phone calls and emails since high-level officials had visited. 

“Their reason is that this play will embarrass and damage the Chinese government and the reputations of specific officials.”

Shuping Wang.

The play, written by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig and due to open on Friday, is a thriller inspired by the true story of Wang’s “extraordinary mission to expose a cover-up of epic proportions”. 

Set in Henan province in 1992 and directed by Michael Boyd, former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, it centres on the danger a young ministry of health official finds herself in when she is recruited into a new medical trade in human blood and uncovers a terrible secret.
Boyd condemned the pressure that Wang’s relatives were under but said: “We will do what Shuping wants, and she really wants this play to go on.”

The plot closely follows the battle Wang and her colleagues waged to uncover the truth. 

“I first reported the HCV [hepatitis] epidemic among blood donors to the Ministry of Health of PRC [People’s Republic of China] in 1992,” said Wang. 

“Three years later, I discovered and reported a serious HIV epidemic among the plasma donors to the Health Bureau of Zhoukou Region and the ministry of health of the PRC ... Only after I reported my results to the central government in Beijing was any action taken. They requested that I falsify my information about the HIV epidemic situation among the plasma donors but I refused. To cover up the HIV epidemic situation, they broke up our clinical testing centre, hit me with a heavy stick and insulted me.”
Wang resisted pressure to close her laboratory, but the health bureau cut off the electricity and water supplies, forcing it to discard thousands of blood samples.
Wang, an American citizen, learned of the visits that were “causing panic” in her home town in a phone call from a relative last month.
The allegation of renewed pressure on Wang and her associates comes as both China’s government and its citizens become increasingly assertive internationally. 

The foreign policy maxim of the former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping – “hide your strength, bide your time” – has been cast aside as Chinese economic power and global influence has grown. 

Instead, shows of strength have attempted to influence how China is depicted internationally.
“It is worrying that China is not bothered that it will be seen to be doing this. It is a sign of its confidence,” said Boyd.
In her statement, Wang said punishing relatives and colleagues of people who spoke out against the leadership was commonplace inside China.
“With bullying and censorship, the government has covered up the HCV and HIV epidemics in China very successfully,” she said.
“Why, in 2019, do they worry so much about a play being produced in London, 24 years after the events it depicts?”