Ai Fen hasn't been seen for days and some fear she could be the latest high-profile person critical of Beijing's handling of COVID-19 to disappear without a trace, "60 Minutes, Australia" reported. Ai rose to fame as the first doctor to notice a cluster of patients with intense flu-like symptoms in Wuhan, more than a month before Chinese officials were forced to confirm the outbreak.
Ai, the director of the emergency unit at Wuhan Central Hospital, told a magazine in March that she had been harshly reprimanded by Chinese authorities for telling the world that the novel coronavirus could spread globally if China did not act. She shared a picture of a patient reporting a SARS-like coronavirus on WeChat, China's most popular messaging app used by more than 1 billion people.
The image Ai shared went viral and eventually made its way to Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor who tried to issue the first warning about the deadly coronavirus but was painted by China's propaganda machines as a liar who didn't know what he was talking about. Police ordered him to stop "making false comments." Li eventually contracted the coronavirus while working at Wuhan Central Hospital and died on Feb. 7.
On Sunday, "60 Minutes, Australia" tweeted out a worrisome message. "Just two weeks ago the head of Emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital went public, saying authorities had stopped her and her colleagues from warning the world. She has now disappeared, her whereabouts unknown."
China has a history of silencing key critics of President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. Many people who have spoken out against the government have been detained while others were never heard from again.
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| Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor. |
Radio Free Asia claimed it hasn't been able to verify Ai's whereabouts independently nor has it been able to establish "a direct line of communication" with her. RFA has reported in the past that people picked up by the police are known to have their social media counts hacked — the people in custody are forced to update their whereabouts, which are often lies, and, if they refuse, the authorities break into their devices and send messages out under the guise of being the person who was taken into custody.
The theory is that if a detained person sends out a message, however cryptic, he or she cannot be "missing." In mid-March, Ren Zhigiang, an outspoken real estate tycoon and critic of Xi and the Communist Party, also went missing.
Ren called Xi, one of China's most powerful leaders in modern history, a "clown" and slammed the government's efforts to contain COVID-19. In an essay Ren shared with friends, he took aim at a speech Xi made on Feb. 23. He told friends that he "saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his 'new clothes,' but a clown stripped naked who insisted he continue being emperor," according to U.S.-based website China Digital Times. Ren hasn't been seen since.
It is important for Xi and the Communist Party to show a united front in handling the coronavirus outbreak. China has been accused of multiple cover-ups and medical experts say if China would have come clean about what it knew about COVID-19 when it knew it, the contagion could have been controlled. Instead, the coronavirus has spread globally, killing hundreds of thousands in its path.
A Chinese Millionaire and Prominent Gadfly of the Communist Party Has Vanished After Staging an Art Performance Criticizing Xi Jinping. Ren Zhiqiang has not been heard from since mid-March. Ren Zhiqiang, the former chairman of Huayuan Property Company Limited, was also a burgeoning artist.
Ren Zhiqiang, a Beijing-based real estate tycoon and vocal critic of his country’s government, has been missing since March 12, stoking widespread speculation that he was silenced by China’s government. One of the last things he did before disappearing was debut a performance artwork that critiqued the country’s authoritarian censorship policies.
Ren, 69, rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early ’90s working for, and eventually running, a real estate investment company. His success in the field and outspoken nature has drawn him numerous comparisons with Donald Trump, and earned him the nickname “the Cannon.” Though he is a well-connected member of the Communist Party, Ren frequently made headlines for his public critiques of the government under Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In 2016, after Ren criticized Xi in a Weibo blog post, his social media accounts were closed and he was placed on a one-year party probation, leaving open the possibility of his expulsion. Earlier this year, responding to a February 23 speech given by Xi, Ren wrote: “I saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’ but a clown who stripped naked and insisted on continuing being emperor.”
“Despite holding a series of loincloths up in an attempt to cover the reality of your nakedness,” he continued, “you don’t in the slightest hide your resolute ambition to be an emperor, or the determination to let anyone who won’t let you be destroyed.”
Earlier this month, Ren circulated a scathing essay in which he castigated the Chinese government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and again called Xi a power-hungry “clown.” Weeks later, his friends reported him missing, and no one has heard from him since.
Last December, Ren, who has picked up art since his retirement, opened an exhibition of his wooden sculptures and wall reliefs at a venue in Beijing’s 798 Art Center. For the opening, he holed himself up inside a cramped workspace in the gallery, letting visitors watch him through a small window.
The idea, he told friends at the time, was to demonstrate how the government’s infringement had left him isolated from the rest of the world, according to the New York Times. Elsewhere in the gallery, Ren’s wooden sculptures sat atop acrylic plinths and each one depicted an abstracted landscape. Ren said the scenes were culled from his dreams and signified how humankind had shaped the environment.
