In mainland China, news about Dr. Jiang’s death or other references to him were censored, highlighting that he remained a perceived political threat two decades after he came to public attention.

“I’m not a hero,” says the doctor. In 2013, state-run Beijing News quoted Jiang as describing his SARS revelations. “All I did was say a few honest things.”

Long out of the public eye and silenced by the Chinese authorities, Dr. Jiang’s defiance has taken on new historical significance during the coronavirus pandemic. parallels were brought in with Beijing’s early coverage of the number of cases of covid and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. In 2003, SARS was blamed for over 800 deaths.

And in late 2019 — weeks before the coronavirus was identified as a global threat — Wuhan optometrist Li Wenliang drew attention to an emerging public health crisis resembling SARS. On Chinese social media, he was hailed as the doctor’s heir. Whistleblower Jiang’s Legacy. Lee died of covid in February 2020 and was announced among the official “martyrs” to fight covid.

Dr. Jiang’s challenge against the state over the SARS report drew mixed reactions from leaders. State media called him an “honest doctor” and a “SARS hero”. Many Chinese considered him a rare risk-taker among the pampered elite, a man willing to stake his state-granted privileges for the sake of his conscience.

At the same time, officials tried to dampen his rising prominence, fearing that he might use it to cast doubt on other versions of the government. “We have 6 million doctors and healthcare workers,” said Gao Qiang, number 1 in the US. In 2003, a health ministry official told The Washington Post that “Jiang Yanyong is one of them.”

The virus first appeared in late 2002 in the southern city of Guangzhou. But the Chinese authorities concealed its distribution until early February 2003. Finally, a text message from health officials said, “Influenza is rampant in Guangzhou.”

In the middle of March World Health Organization issued the first warning about the virus, but the Chinese media ignored it. Then, on April 3, 2003, Health Minister Zhang Wenkang told a press conference that China was “safe” and that “SARS was under effective control” with only 12 cases and three deaths reported in Beijing.

Dr. Jiang was outraged. Even though he was half retired, he knew military hospitals were facing a surge in SARS patients – more than 100 cases in Beijing alone. He sent an email to China Central Television and the Hong Kong television station Phoenix accusing Zhang, who was also a doctor with a military background, of covering up the true SARS numbers.

“All the doctors and nurses who saw yesterday’s news were furious,” he wrote, accusing Zhang of “giving up on his most basic standard of integrity as a doctor.”

None of the stations followed the doctor. Jiang’s message. It was leaked to Time magazine, which published a story April 8, 2003, titled “The SARS attack in Beijing”.

International pressure on China has intensified, and the WHO wondered if Beijing was hiding the extent of the epidemic. The Chinese leadership immediately fired Zhang and Beijing Mayor Meng Xuenong, while public health officials took aggressive measures to contain the spread.

“I felt I had to talk about what was going on,” the doctor said. Jiang said“not only to save China, but also to save the world.”

But dr. Jiang’s rise was soon followed by a sharp fall. He crossed a red line in China that few dare, publicly calling for retribution for the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. There is no official death toll among the pro-democracy protesters who have occupied the square, with estimates ranging from a few hundred to over 10,000.

Tiananmen remains an untouchable topic in China’s political and public life. Dr. Jiang’s position as a member of the Communist Party and a high-ranking military officer gave his comments an additional level of unease for leaders.

“Our party must correct the mistakes it has made,” said Dr. K. Jiang, who was on duty at No. 1.301 Military Hospital in Beijing, in a letter to party officials the night the tanks rolled into the square. “Everyone whose family members have been unjustly killed should make the same request.”

Dr. Jiang and his wife Hua Zhongwei were placed under house arrest. Jiang was taken into custody for more than six weeks during “political indoctrination sessions.” He was banned from communicating with foreign media and banned from leaving the country. He has virtually disappeared from public view, save for a few state-controlled remarks.

After his detention in 2004, Chinese officials made a brief statement to The Post, stating that the military “assisted and trained him”.

Jiang Yanyong was born on October 1 in Hangzhou. January 4, 1931 and grew up in nearby Shanghai in a family consisting of banking. He said he decided to pursue a career in medicine after watching his aunt die of tuberculosis.

He studied at Yanqing University in Beijing after Mao Zedong’s communist forces came to power in 1949. He received his medical education in Beijing Union Medical College and later enlisted in the medical corps of the Chinese army.

Dr. Jiang was sent to Beijing 301 Hospital in 1957. His family background, however, placed him under the influence of Mao’s Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 against foreign influence and others who were seen as potential enemies of the state.

Dr. Jiang was branded a counter-revolutionary because of his father’s banking connections and his pedigree. His cousin Chiang Yan-shih was a high-ranking official in Mao’s rival, the Kuomintang, whose leaders fled to Taiwan after being defeated in the civil war by the Communists.

Dr. Jiang was imprisoned and then exiled to the western provinces of China. He was allowed to return to No. 301 hospital in the early 1970s after he was declared “politically exonerated”. He stepped down as chief surgeon shortly before the SARS outbreak, but retained ties to the hospital to treat patients and educate doctors.

In 2007, hello what is forbidden leave China to receive a human rights award from the New York Academy of Sciences.

In addition to his wife, the survivors include a daughter and a son.

At the end of the life of Dr. Jiang had one last quarrel with the authorities. In 2019, on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, he sent a letter to Chinese leader Xi Jinping demanding he take responsibility for the events of June 1989. Jiang was placed under house arrest again.