Dr. Li, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist at the Central Hospital of Wuhan, was reprimanded by the police after he shared concerns about seven new cases of pneumonia in an online chat group on Dec. 30. At the time, the Wuhan health commission was telling hospitals not to say anything publicly and just report the cases internally. The police accused the eight doctors of rumor-mongering. They compelled Dr. Li to sign a statement answering the questions Can you stop your illegal behavior? and Do you understand youll be punished if you dont stop such behavior? He wrote, I can and I understand, and put his red-inked thumbprint on them.
In a strictly totalitarian system, that might have been the last word. But it was not. China is an authoritarian, one-party state that can easily silence dissidents one by one, but there are limits to its control, especially when millions of people on social media grow angry as they have over Dr. Lis death and the governments failure to inform the public in the early stage of the epidemic. Aside from the biomedical issues and lockdown sacrifices, the public has zeroed in on the unexplained information gaps and coverups. This is extremely sensitive for a leadership that rigidly polices information.
According to Li Yuan of the New York Times, the hashtag #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech# was created on Chinas social media platform Weibo at 2 a.m. on Friday, and had more than 2 million views and over 5,500 posts by 7 a.m. before it was deleted by censors. Another hashtag, The Wuhan government owes Li Wenliang an apology, was viewed 180million times by late Thursday before it was blocked by government censors, the Financial Times reported.
This is not the first crisis of the digital age to expose popular fury in China: The Sichuan earthquake and contaminated dairy products scandal of 2008 and the Zhejiang train disaster of 2011 all did the same. Chinas leaders have grown more proficient at managing it, giving people limited room to let off steam while marshaling censors, as well as injecting their own messages into the social media stream. The decision in Beijing to send a prosecutorial unit to investigate Dr. Lis death is also a damage-control move.
The coronavirus outbreak presents a vast public-health challenge to China and will for months to come. But at the same time, it is shaking the foundations of a political system built on President Xi Jinpings assurance that the party knows best for all. Chinas people have some doubts.
Read more:
David Ignatius: The coronavirus outbreak shows the vulnerability of the Chinese model
John Pomfret: The coronavirus reawakens old racist tropes against Chinese people
John M. Barry: Can this virus be contained? Probably not.
Tom Frieden: The next pandemic is coming. Were not prepared for it.
The Posts View: China should embrace the lessons of previous outbreaks to combat the new coronavirus
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