On December 30th, 2019, a Chinese doctor, Dr. Li Wenliang had shared a message on a social media group of his classmates, asking them to wear protective clothing to prevent contacting the unknown ‘infection’. This infection is what the world is combating against, and which has claimed over 8000 lives worldwide. Dr. Wenliang was the first whistleblower in China to warn against the then-unknown virus. Sadly, he succumbed to novel Coronavirus COVID-19 in February.
Four days after he had posted the message, warning his friends against the virus, Dr. Wenliang was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter, he was accused of “making false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order”. He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for “spreading rumours”. In his Weibo (Chinese Twitter of sorts) post, he describes how on 10th January he started coughing, the next day he had a fever and two days later he was in the hospital. He was diagnosed with the Coronavirus on 30th January, and died in February. Dr. Wenliang’s death infuriated not only the Chinese public, but the world at large, as the sinister plot of the Chinese Communist Party to hide the truth about COVID-19 lay bare for everyone to see. It has been alleged that Chinese authorities interfered with Dr. Li’s treatment, leading to his death.
The unceremonious death of Dr. Wenliang shook the foundations of Communist rule in China, with Xi Jinping facing a potential rebellion of sorts against his authoritarian regime. The anger against the Communist Party of China is at an all-time high, and the regime is at a backfoot. As such, it cannot afford to play hardball any longer.
Keeping in mind the public sympathy towards the heroism of Dr. Wenliang, the CCP has decided to exonerate the doctor. The police force of Wuhan has been directed to revoke the admonishment of Dr. Li, which included a threat to arrest. The CCP also said that a “solemn apology” had been issued to Li’s family and that two police officers, identified only by their surnames, had been issued “disciplinary punishments” for the original handling of the matter. This is an outright attempt to tone down the anger of citizens against the regime for handling the crisis in a shadowy manner, putting global lives at risk.
Dr. Wenliang is not the only one to be victimized by the Communist regime in China. Citizen journalists have gone missing for daring to expose the realities prevalent in Wuhan. Citizen journalist Chen Qiushi who dared to travel to Wuhan and uncover the truth despite the threat of the Chinese Communist Party has mysteriously gone missing. In one of Chen’s videos, he expressed his worries about human-to-human transmission inside the hospital as all the patients shared the same ward. Chen noted that the hygiene outside the hospital was also pretty bad — used masks, gloves, and vomit were omnipresent.
Similarly, Chen’s colleague and journalist Fang Bin secretly filmed 8 bodies in five minutes at a Wuhan hospital ward and was immediately arrested the same night by Chinese authorities. Both these citizen journalists are untraceable, and family and friends are clueless about their whereabouts. Such is the character of the Chinese state that they do not consider it important to even inform the family about where they have locked up one of their loved ones.
It is not like only normal citizens are being subjected to criminalities by the Chinese state. Chinese tycoon, Ren Zhiqiang, a member of the ruling Communist Party and a former top executive of the state-controlled property developer Huayuan Real Estate Group has also mysteriously disappeared after he directly criticised Xi Jinping over his failure to contain the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus.
In a critical article against Xi Jinping’ February 23rd speech, Reg wrote that after analyzing the Chinese President’s speech he “saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’ but a clown stripped naked who insisted on continuing being emperor.” Reg is nowhere to be found now.
China’s callousness is costing human lives around the globe today. Had China been sensible enough to not hide crucial information at the earliest stages, and had it cancelled its Lunar New Year celebrations, the world today perhaps would have not been facing a disastrous pandemic. Further, had China put a ban of its animal ‘wet markets’, where all exotic species are up for sale for human consumption, 8000 lives would have been spared. Information transparency is crucial in preventing a pandemic from spreading its wings, and China consistently suppressed information and downplayed the impact of the virus. Furthermore, it has been shirking all responsibility, and is instead blaming the USA for ‘planting’ the virus on Chinese soil.
China is continuously doing injustice to the human race by suppressing information, and potentially lying about the fatalities it has itself suffered due to COVID-19. Italy recorded 627 deaths yesterday, the highest tally of deaths to occur in a single day, above that of China’s daily highest tally. For a country like Italy, with a considerably lesser population, which is further less nucleated than China’s in terms of settlements, to encounter over 200 more deaths daily as compared to China’s highest daily fatality figure is indeed flummoxing. It only points to what many have feared all along – China has been lying about their figures.
The local backlash of the Chinese people against the Communist regime may trigger a sea of problems for Xi Jinping, who has been having a tough patch ever since the Hong Kong citizen protests peaked last year. Such a rebellion might just spread across China, and lead to a regime change, which of course would be bloody in nature, courtesy the fact that China is a communist state.
Finally, I’ll leave the readers with this graph, which has certainly led to many speculations on social media about the efficacy with which China has lied about its fatalities.
Latest figures released by China Mobile show that they have lost 8.116 million users in Jan and Feb. Where are these users now? Switched to other carriers? Or, they couldn't carry their phone to the nether world?
Chinese report at: https://t.co/lxw5FFYzoP#CCPVirus #COVID2019 pic.twitter.com/8sRV4lmDCv— Inconvenient Truths by Jennifer Zeng 曾錚真言 (@jenniferzeng97) March 20, 2020
China has lost 8.1 million mobile telecom users between January and February. You are free to draw the corresponding conclusions.