Based on an essay by Kaori Fukushima, this article examines China’s information concealment, suppression of speech, discrimination against Wuhan and Hubei residents, and the shock caused by the death of Dr. Li Wenliang during the coronavirus outbreak.
It argues that the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on so-called “rumors” accelerated the spread of infection and deepened global fear and distrust of China.

March 12, 2020
The fear of China felt by the people of the world has exceeded the speed at which the virus spreads and has driven China into an unprecedented state of global isolation.
The following is from an essay by Kaori Fukushima, one of Japan’s foremost China watchers, published in this month’s issue of the national must-read monthly magazine Hanada under the title “Even Hunting Down People from Wuhan and Hubei: A Cruel Story of the New Pneumonia.”
Her essay also clearly shows that those who only subscribe to the Asahi Shimbun and similar newspapers and only watch television news programs such as NHK’s Watch 9 are left as information weaklings who know nothing of the truth.
Kaori Fukushima graduated from Osaka University, joined the Sankei Shimbun, studied at Fudan University, worked as a correspondent in Beijing, and is now active as a journalist.
The infection of the new coronavirus pneumonia has spread throughout China in only two months since the first infection case was confirmed, and it is raging fiercely.
As of the time of writing this manuscript, midnight on February 14, there were 63,851 infected people.
Outside China, there were 517, excluding asymptomatic infected persons.
Of these, 1,380 had died.
Outside China, three had died.
Some believe that the peak may come as early as late February and that the outbreak will end in April.
But it is also possible that the peak will come in April or May and that the declaration of the end of the infection will be delayed until around July.
In Japan, if passengers on the cruise ship are included, there are more than 200 infected people.
Japan has the second-largest number of infected people after China, and secondary infections have also occurred.
Yet Japan remains carefree.
Infectious disease experts are telling the major media that it is not more frightening than influenza.
But if that is the case, why is there, as of mid-February, such confusion, disorder, and dysfunction inside China, as if it were the game Resident Evil?
In China, a “cruel story of the new pneumonia,” resembling hell on earth, is unfolding.
A life-risking warning treated as a rumor.
On February 6, Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, died.
Is this not the very symbol of the cruelty and hopelessness of the situation?
On December 30, 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang was quick to warn about the emergence of a frightening virus resembling SARS in a group chat on WeChat, the Chinese SNS, made up of his university classmates.
A coronavirus had been confirmed in pneumonia patients at the hospital where he worked.
The symptoms resembled SARS.
From this, he suspected a recurrence of SARS and called on fellow doctors as follows.
“Everyone, because the chat will be blocked, do not leak this outside. But tell your family and friends to be careful.”
However, on January 3 after the New Year, he was summoned by the police for “spreading false information.”
He was reprimanded as having committed the crime of “disturbing social order” and was made to sign a document of admonition.
After that, he returned to work.
But a glaucoma patient whom he examined on January 8 was hospitalized with pneumonia the next day.
Dr. Li Wenliang himself developed pneumonia on January 10 and was hospitalized from January 12.
On January 30, he was diagnosed with new coronavirus pneumonia.
His parents and fellow doctors had also been infected.
On January 27, the Beijing Youth Daily and others reported that Dr. Li Wenliang had been detained for spreading rumors.
The Wuhan public security authorities had announced on January 1 that they had detained eight people for “spreading rumors online.”
It was revealed that one of those eight was Dr. Li Wenliang, and that what he had done was not a rumor but a life-risking warning.
There is also a theory that Dr. Li Wenliang was not included among the eight detained on January 1, and that those detained and punished on suspicion of spreading rumors were the eight plus Dr. Li Wenliang.
These reports in the Chinese media caused public dissatisfaction and criticism of the authorities’ excessive crackdown on “rumors” to erupt.
On January 28, the official WeChat account of the Supreme People’s Court also commented as follows.
“The new pneumonia is not SARS, but the content of this information was not entirely fabricated. If the general public had heard this ‘rumor’ at the time, they would have recalled the fear of SARS, worn masks, disinfected strictly, avoided markets with wild animals, and taken other measures. The current state of prevention against the new pneumonia would have been better.”
In response to this comment by the Supreme Court, the Wuhan public security authorities made excuses, saying that they had imposed neither detention nor fines, and had only given warnings and education.
Zeng Guang, chief scientist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview with the Global Times:
“These eight people are patriots who worry about the country and the people and are worthy of respect.”
He belatedly praised the eight who had been labeled rumor spreaders.
On January 31, Dr. Li Wenliang uploaded to SNS the admonition document he had signed and explained how he had been punished.
He appealed that he had merely transmitted the facts.
His life lasted only one more week after that.
How many “rumor spreaders” did the Wuhan police drag away after the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia?
If the desperate warnings of Dr. Li Wenliang and other doctors on the front lines had not been treated as “rumors” and punished, would the infection have spread this far?
Because Dr. Li Wenliang and other doctors were punished, frontline doctors and health officials at the lowest levels became intimidated, and the sharing and exchange of information became insufficient.
Is that not why the outbreak reached this scale?
Was it not for that reason that hospital-acquired infections occurred, doctors fell ill one after another, and the medical system collapsed?
According to a survey of 138 people hospitalized at Wuhan University Zhongnan Hospital between January 7 and January 28, the terrifying figures were a hospital-acquired infection rate of 41 percent and an in-hospital fatality rate of 4.3 percent.
Moreover, of the 138 people, 57 patients were infected inside that hospital.
Forty were medical workers, and seventeen were patients hospitalized for other illnesses.
At 9:30 p.m. on February 6, Dr. Li Wenliang’s heart stopped.
However, the Wuhan city health authorities are said to have gone out of their way to obtain permission from higher-level leaders and forcibly restarted his once-stopped heart with ECMO, an artificial heart-lung machine.
Fellow doctors said with grief and indignation that life-prolonging measures were forcibly applied to a body that had not revived even after three hours of cardiac massage.
The authorities probably wanted to put on the posture that they had made every possible effort to treat Dr. Li Wenliang.
Otherwise, they might have been suspected by public opinion of deliberately allowing Dr. Li Wenliang’s pneumonia to worsen.
According to the official announcement, Dr. Li Wenliang’s death was at 2:58 a.m. on February 7.
He was thirty-four years old.
But Chinese citizens deliberately did not accept the officially announced date and time of death, and made February 6 the day of Dr. Li Wenliang’s death.
The lack of free speech that threatens survival.
Groups of intellectuals and lawyers have issued statements and open letters one after another, calling for February 6, the day Dr. Li Wenliang died, to be designated “National Free Speech Day.”
Many intellectuals, including Professor Zhang Qianfan of Peking University, Professor Xu Zhangrun of Tsinghua University, and the independent scholar Xiao Shu, jointly published a letter online addressed to the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee.
They appealed as follows.
“February 6 should be made National Free Speech Day, Li Wenliang Day. Without freedom of speech, there is no safety.”
They further criticized the Chinese government’s methods as follows.
“Through the authorities’ suppression of speech and truth, the new coronavirus raged, and hundreds of millions of Chinese people were plunged into the fear of quarantine during the traditional holiday they should have enjoyed most. While the entire people are effectively under house arrest, society and the economy have been forced to stagnate.”
“This tragedy began when Dr. Li Wenliang and the other eight doctors were admonished by the police at the beginning of January. The dignity of doctors was made so servile before the police violence against freedom of speech. For thirty years, in exchange for freedom, the Chinese people have fallen into an unsafe public health crisis and have been driven into a humanitarian disaster. The fear of China felt by the people of the world has exceeded the speed at which the virus spreads and has driven China into an unprecedented state of global isolation. All of this is the price paid for abandoning freedom and suppressing speech, and the Chinese way is now sinking into foam.”
They also presented the following demands.
February 6 should be designated National Free Speech Day, and the Chinese people should be granted the right to freedom of speech guaranteed by Article 35 of the Constitution.
Chinese people must not be threatened by any state organ or political organization because of speech.
The rights of citizens, including freedom of association and communication, must not be infringed.
State organs must immediately stop censorship of SNS and lift blockades.
Equal rights must be guaranteed to citizens registered in Wuhan and Hubei Province, and Wuhan pneumonia patients must receive timely, proper, and effective medical assistance.
The National People’s Congress must convene an emergency meeting and discuss how immediately to guarantee citizens’ freedom of speech.
A group of Chinese human rights lawyers also proposed that February 6 be designated “All-People Speak the Truth Day.”
According to the proposal, more than 300 citizens had already been detained for spreading “rumors” related to this pneumonia.
The lawyers argued as follows.
“Spreading rumors and spreading information cannot be completely distinguished as two different situations. Citizens are different from authoritative institutions, have almost no ability to grasp accurate information, and information is always changing.”
In other words, they argued that even if people spread information that is not factual, they should not be punished.
They further pointed out:
“It is precisely the suppression of speech that has expanded the infection situation, destroyed countless families, taken human lives, and caused a global social tragedy.”
On February 7, alumni of Tsinghua University, a prestigious school in Beijing, issued a “Letter to Compatriots Nationwide” and raised the following five demands.
First, they firmly oppose placing political security above all else.
This is nothing more than the goal of an extremely selfish small group.
Second, they firmly oppose the blockade of SNS.
Third, they firmly oppose the current model of ideological control and firmly oppose treating the people as enemies.
Fourth, they firmly oppose turning disaster into propaganda and praise for the unity and morale of the Communist Party and the state.
The responsibility of corrupt officials must be pursued, and the responsibility of the system must be pursued.
Fifth, they firmly oppose the “reverse course.”
Deng Xiaoping’s abolition of lifetime tenure for leading cadres must be maintained.
Triggered by the spread of the new coronavirus pneumonia, the dissatisfaction of intellectuals with the Xi Jinping administration, which had reversed the Deng Xiaoping line, advanced personal dictatorship, and strengthened control over speech and ideology, burst out all at once.
This dissatisfaction is not limited to intellectuals.
Ordinary people, who have been confronted with the fact that the absence of free speech threatens their very “right to survive,” also sympathize with it.
The situation has reached the point where it may shake the very foundations of the Xi Jinping administration.
This essay continues.