Remembering Li Wenliang, the 12 Hongkongers and Jimmy Lai

Tributes pour out for Li who warned about the coronavirus

 

Today is the one year anniversary of Wuhan ophthalmologist Li Wenliang sending a text message in a group chat with his former classmates about a mysterious virus that seemed to be life threatening.

At first he was silenced by the police, and then later he himself contracted the virus and died on February 7. 

Zhang sentenced to four years for her reports

One year later, citizen journalist and lawyer Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" when she shot videos of what she saw in Wuhan. She knew she was going into sensitive territory as police and security guards threatened to destroy her phone if she continued filming. Zhang did, revealing how much the government wanted to prevent the truth from coming out.

She is not the only person to give first-hand reports in Wuhan, but also Chen Mei, Cai Wei, Li Zehua, Chen Qiushi, and Fang Bin. They have either been arrested or detained, but we have yet to have any update on their situations.

And look where we are today, with over 82 million cases, almost 1.8 million deaths worldwide.

Meanwhile this morning in Shenzhen, the verdict came down on the 12 Hongkongers who tried to flee to Taiwan by speedboat but ended up being intercepted by the Guangdong coast guard.

The Chinese authorities claimed the trial was open, and yet none of the relatives of the 12 were in the courtroom, nor were diplomats allowed in either. 

Two under aged Hongkongers freed from China

First, two were underage and after pleading guilty, they were handed over to Hong Kong police this morning after spending four months in detention. The pair, Liu Tsz-man and Hoang Lam-phuc, refused to talk to the media about their experience.

Eight of the fugitives face seven months' in prison, but having served four months, it is expected they will be released in March.

However, Tang Kai-yin and Quinn Moon were convicted for organizing the crime of illegally crossing the border. Tang was sentenced to three years, and Quinn -- the only woman in the group -- faces two years in prison.

Reaction from their families and pro-democracy activists was that the sentences were too harsh, while mainland lawyers and pro-Beijing politicians felt the outcome was lenient.

A family-appointed mainland lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the punishments handed to Tang and Quinn were "too heavy".

The families of the 12 have had no contact

"If their role only involved buying or driving the boat as a group, it shouldn't constitute organizing the crime," he said, in a reference to Tang's role.

Barrister Chow Hang-tung could not understand why the fugitives' offences were categorized as "serious" when they were first-time offenders.

"On the mainland, many illegal border crossing cases were not even treated as criminal cases," she said. "But for a closed-door trial, any sentences is too tough. Everyone knows this wasn't an open and fair trial. This sentences was extremely excessive -- it was meant to deter Hong Kong people from continuing with their [political] movement."

However, Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong's sole representative to the National People's Congress Standing Committee said the sentences were understandable.

"Some Hong Kong critics have tried to politicize this, and said mainland authorities will prosecute them on charges related to national security," he said. "But that did not happen... The only message from the court was that if you cross the border illegally, you will bear the consequences. Nothing else."

Judge says Lai is giving his personal opinion

Then in Hong Kong, a High Court judge said Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has an "arguable" case against a charge of breaking the national security law, in his explanation of why he allowed the tycoon out on bail.

While the prosecution claimed Lai's commentaries proved his collusion with foreign forces by requesting foreign governments impose sanctions on the mainland and Hong Kong, Justice Alex Lee Wan-tang said these purported requests could be seen as mere personal opinion.

The judge added the fraud case against Lai lacked enough evidence to prove he and two co-defendants had intended to deceive the landlord about subleasing space to another firm.

Justice Lee also felt the restrictions on Lai's movements and actions were reasonable, and that he would not flee Hong Kong. 

 

Keeping the May Fourth Spirit Alive

Matthew Pottinger spoke in Mandarin to mark the May Fourth Movement

I completely missed the speech by Matthew Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor on May 4 to mark the 101th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. He spoke it entirely in Mandarin, which is pretty good, and it must have been tiring to read out a speech that was over 20 minutes long, but his points are very interesting.

To be able to speak directly to the Chinese, let alone Beijing is very interesting, though sadly his speech was censored so not many actually got to watch it.



But the content of his speech and using the anniversary of the May Fourth Movement to talk about the importance of democracy is fascinating.

He says on May 4, 1919, following World War I, thousands of university students descended on Tiananmen Square to protest the unfair treatment of China at the Paris Peace Conference. Western nations appeased Imperial Japan by granting it control of a territory including previously German-occupied Shandong Peninsula.

"The Chinese students who marched to Tiananmen that day shouted 'give us back Shandong!' and 'don't sign the Versailles Treaty!' Police forced the students to disperse," Pottinger says. "But as frequently happens when governments close down avenues for peaceful expression, some protesters resorted to violence. In a principled move that acknowledged popular anger, China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles later that year."

He adds "Mr Science" and "Mr Democracy" were mottoes of the movement that propelled China into the modern era.

Then Pottinger talks about Hu Shih, a Chinese philosopher, essayist and diplomat. During the May 4 Movement, he was a key contributor in releasing the Chinese language free from scholars and imperialist culture and instead giving it to the ordinary people. "Bai hua" or literally "plain speech" is what Hu advocated which was revolutionary at the time.

Hu's peer, Chang Peng Chun, or PC Chang also made a big contribution. He studied in the United States, adapted Mulan for the stage, and organized a US tour for Peking opera singer Mei Lanfang. However Chang's greatest achievement was his contribution to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, says Pottinger.

"Marrying Western belief in the primacy of the individual with Chinese concern for the greater good", Chang helped craft a document that would be relevant to all nations... A declaration on human rights was not simply about the rights of the individual, in Chang's view. It was also about the individual's obligations to society," says Pottinger.

Then he pivots, asking who today embodies the May Fourth Spirit, and Pottinger immediately brings up ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who alerted his group of friends about a new virus that seemed contagious, but later was forced by the police to sign a "confession" for leaking word about the coronavirus. Li died from the virus days soon after.

"Dr Li's comment to a reporter from his deathbed still rings in our ears: 'I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I don't approve of using public power for excessive interference.' Dr Li was using Hu Shih-style 'plain speech' to make a practical point," observes Pottinger.

He also names citizen reporters who have also tried to find the truth but are missing: Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin, and Li Zehua; he also points out more foreign reporters have been expelled from China than the Soviet Union did over decades.

Pottinger also names people who have served as "China's conscience". "Many are regular citizens. Xu Zhangrun [Xi critic], Ren Zhiqiang [tycoon and Xi critic], Xu Zhiyong [civil rights activist], Ilham Tohti [Uighur academic], Fang Fang [novelist who wrote Wuhan Diary], 20 Catholic priests who have refused to subordinate God to the Communist Party, and the millions of Hong Kong citizens who peacefully demonstrated for the rule of law last year. The list goes on," he says.

Towards the end of his speech, Pottinger asks what the ultimate legacy of the May Fourth Movement will be, and the answers can be found by the Chinese people.

"Those with fortitude to seek and speak the truth in China today may take comfort, however, in something Lu Xun wrote: 'Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood.'"

One can see why Pottinger's speech was censored, but a strong case for China to continue in the May Fourth Spirit towards democracy... as it later led to the establishment of the Communist Party...

Where is Chen Qiushi?

A screenshot of Chen Qiushi in Wuhan to document the coronavirus there

People who have been following lawyer and citizen journalist Chen Qiushi are asking where he is.

In the last few days he has been missing and now he has been "quarantined" but no one knows where.

Some may remember the Qingdao native who came to Hong Kong in August to report on the anti-government protests. He made videos of the protests and posted them on YouTube, challenging state media reports that claimed all the protesters were rioters and separatists.

In August he was in Hong Kong

Instead Chen said most of them were peaceful. "Not all of them are rioters," the 34-year-old said in one of his videos.

He was summoned back to Beijing, and after he returned, he was harassed and silenced by the authorities. His social media accounts, including Weibo that had 740,000 followers, were deleted.

But he vowed to continue to speak out.

When news of the epicentre of the coronavirus was in Wuhan, Chen got on a train on Chinese New Year eve to go there and report what was happening. He promised he would tell the truth, that he would not spread rumours, that he would try to protect himself from the coronavirus the best he could, and he would not leave Wuhan if he caught the virus.

He made videos interviewing people who were sick and desperate for a hospital bed, he interviewed nurses and doctors, one of whom confirmed there were corpses in the hospital hallways covered in sheets but they didn't know if they had died of the coronavirus. He also saw the unsanitary conditions in the hospitals with used gloves, masks and vomit everywhere.

He posted videos, talking about corpses in hospital hallways

At the same time he had to watch his back with the authorities knowing he was there and didn't want him out reporting on his own. They forced him to move out of his hostel, his WeChat account would be blocked if he posted another video on the app.

And now Chen has been missing since February 6. His friend posted a video of Chen's mother the following day, saying her son had disappeared.

"I'm here to beg everyone online, especially friends in Wuhan to help find Qiushi, find out what's going on with him," she said.

Then later that evening Xu Xiaodong, a well-known mixed martial artist, posted a video saying that Chen had been forced into quarantine.

"In the last few hours the Qingdao public security officers and state security officers... notified Qiushi's parents that Qiushi has already been detained in the name of quarantine. Qiushi's' mother immediately asked them where and when he was taken away, they declined to say," said Xu.

Chen (left) with friend and MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong

Xu stressed that in his conversations with Chen, he was in good health before he disappeared.

Chen's friends worry about him, but also that he might be infected with the virus.

Are people looking for him? Will he be found? As some have said online, we cannot have another Li Wenliang...