1/ The death of Dr. Li Wen-Liang has caused great grief for the public. He was not known as a doctor that died of Coronavirus, but as a public health whistleblower. Dr. Li was not the only whistleblower I know of, & he will not be the last one, unless China became a democracy. 
2/ In past decades, there're a lot of doctors acting as whistleblowers in China, calling for attention in public health crisis. In 90s, Shuping Wang revealed an AIDS epidemic in rural China, she attributes spread of HIV to shoddy facilities that bought blood from poor farmers.
3/ She potentially saved tens of thousands of lives & became target of CCP, she was sacked off from her position as a medical researcher & was her family were being pressured. In 2001, to avoid further harassment by 🇨🇳, she moved to US where she worked until her death.
4/ Dr. Gao Yaojie is another whistleblower who took up the AIDS issue and became the most prominent face of the campaign to expose and end the epidemic. She first encountered patients in her 70s and since then devoted herself to their cause.
5/ In 2003, Dr. Jiang Yanyong tried to expose the spread of SARS in China, but was ignored by the state’s media. Later, he was reached by foreign media & successfully gained public attention, making the public aware of the actual situation in China.
6/ CCP at last began actively deal with growing epidemic of SARS, & prevented disease from reaching pandemic proportions. These public health whistleblowers & many others in other fields are people who are willing to sacrifice their life, career & well-being, to do what is right.
7/ I was reading an article written by the host of platforms which posted coronavirus-related information written by Dr. Li. The article detailed how he was being taken away & questioned by the authorities, he was asked if he is patriotic, and if he thinks he has broken the laws.
8/ Shortly after the article was posted, it was removed by authorities as it “violates policy of service provider”, which deprived of his freedom of speech. I see the whistleblowers as people I look up to, but sometimes I can’t help but doubt if their sacrifices are worthy.
9/ There seems to be no actual change in China through out decades. The West tried to open up China by opening up its market but ended up encouraging it to blackmail every state with its 13 billion people market; whistleblowers gave their life to tell the truth.
10/ However, CCP can still hide facts it deems dangerous & a threat to stability by great firewall. But this time, things seem to be different, after Li’s death, Chinese citizens are posting with #wedemandfreedomofspeech on Weibo, demanding for freedom & access to information.
11/ Some of the posts are immediately deleted by the authorities, but it was enough to spark off ripples on the intranet in China. Real name policy is being adopted on Weibo, meaning that the officials can get to everyone of them who used the hashtag.
12/ Even though they're simply demanding very fundamental rights they ought to enjoy as a human being, they have to risk their life. I feel glad & worried to see Chinese are willing to stand up for their fundamental rights while knowing what dire straits that could lead them to.
