The EconomistFebruary 15th 2020 China 37T
he deathof Li Wenliang has shaken China like an earthquake.
He was a young doctor who was reprimanded by Chinese police
for alerting colleagues to a new virus that has now killed more than
1,300 people, Dr Li among them (see Obituary). There was nation-
wide soul-searching when the ophthalmologist told Chinese me-
dia, days before his death on February 6th in Wuhan, Hubei prov-
ince, that silencing truth-tellers can make a country sick. “I think
there should be more than one voice in a healthy society,” he said.
There is special outrage that this everyman-physician died
with the charge of rumour-mongering still on his police file.
“What kind of society have we created?” asked Chinese netizens,
with a mixture of anger and shame. In the hours after Dr Li’s death
nearly 2m of them shared or viewed a hashtag meaning “I want
freedom of speech”, before it was deleted by censors. Open letters
and petitions have called on the Communist Party’s leaders to hon-
our the constitution’s neglected guarantee of free expression, ar-
guing that truth-telling saves lives. “We should learn from Li Wen-
liang’s death,” said an academic in Wuhan behind one petition.
Party leaders will not learn to embrace free speech or political
pluralism. They know their history and that in Chinese tradition
the death of an honest man, wronged by those in power, can be a
potent, dangerous event. Many times over the centuries, public
gatherings to mourn such people have sparked political crises, in-
cluding in Communist times. Party chiefs have duly rushed to co-
opt Dr Li as a hero whose suffering should be blamed on isolated,
local wrongdoing. To bolster that idea, officials have been sent
from Beijing to look into his case. Global Times, a nationalist tab-
loid, has stressed in its reporting that Dr Li was a loyal party mem-
ber. It alleges that calls to honour Dr Li’s memory are being
whipped up by “anti-China forces” abroad and in Hong Kong.
After a few days in which Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, was
relatively invisible, the propaganda machine has now cleared
front pages for accounts of his virus-control work. Mr Xi made a
rare public appearance, visiting hospital and community offices in
Beijing. Three days later he reshuffled the leadership of Hubei, the
worst-hit area. The state news agency, Xinhua, called him the
“commander of the people’s war against the epidemic”. To some
readers, the martial title may sound stirring. Others may fear it
leaveslittleroomforscientificdebate or scrutiny by outsiders
such as journalists, notably those brave Chinese reporters who
have done remarkable work in recent weeks in their efforts to cov-
er the virus’s spread. In a war instructions from the top are orders.
Censorship is being tightened, ending a brief period of unusual
liberty for social-media users. The country’s largest internet plat-
forms have been placed under “special supervision” by cyber-reg-
ulators, with extra controls on anything resembling citizen jour-
nalism. Yet shows of authority cannot stop the public from
brooding about Dr Li. As millions of Chinese read and share ac-
counts of his short life and tragic death, they are being forced to de-
vote unusual attention to their social compact with the country’s
authoritarian rulers.
Sometimes adherence to that compact seems almost pain-
less—for instance last October, when many Chinese expressed
deep, unfeigned pride on the 70th anniversary of a People’s Repub-
lic with shiny mega-cities, high-speed trains and aircraft-carriers
that awe the world. Unbidden, many Chinese credit one-party rule
with offering efficiency and stability, especially when democratic
countries seem mired in dysfunction.
Such confidence is harder now. Dr Li’s last weeks on Earth ob-
lige his fellow citizens to confront the costs of a system without
free speech, an uncensored press or independent legal system.
Many have read the humiliating letter that police in Wuhan made
him sign, agreeing that his truth-telling was in fact a lie that
“gravely disturbed social order”. Not content with forcing the doc-
tor to deny reality, police added school-bully phrases, asking him
to write “I can” and “I understand” when asked if he would now
calm down and heed the police, or face legal penalties.
Lots of patriotic, law-abiding Chinese have glimpsed for them-
selves the casual, swaggering sadism of a system without account-
ability, in which the law is just another instrument for frightening
the defenceless. They can see how, when agents of the state fear no
external checks and balances, it is rational for them to bury bad
news, right up until a crisis becomes too big to hide: a dynamic that
builds instability into the way China is run.Then they came for the Weibo users
Even today’s tight censorship is teaching bleak lessons to millions
of apolitical folk who normally never see their posts deleted, or no-
tice when news reports vanish after causing too much fuss. Some
may be comforted by familiar propaganda about good national
leaders let down by bad apples in the provinces. Such tales draw on
traditions with deep roots, involving virtuous, faraway emperors
and local tyrants. The gains are short-term, however. Each attack
on local corruption or bungling stokes public distrust and makes
the case for further centralisation. But China is too big to be ruled
from its capital, let alone by one man. Even those who think Mr Xi a
great commander know that he needs good lieutenants.
None of this presages a revolution. The virus is a hard test for
the party, but it has survived worse. A vanishingly small number of
Chinese see a viable alternative to the social compact that binds
them to their rulers. Still, Dr Li’s death has obliged an unusually
broad range of citizens to contemplate the unhappy compromises
needed merely to survive in a bossy, paranoid dictatorship. After
some good years, a fresh crisis has reminded millions of Chinese
that their rulers define truth as they see fit. Public anger about Dr
Li’s fate will fade, just as countries recover from earthquakes. But
those who feel the ground shake never forget or trust in its solidity
the same way again. 7Chaguan Death of an everyman
A virus-related tragedy lays bare the costs and trade-offs of life in a Communist-led dictatorship