Chinese release surgeon who exposed SARS cases
written by: Joseph Kahn, 21-Jul-04
 | | Jiang Yanyong, the military doctor who exposed China's SARS cover-up last year is seen in this undated file photo taken in Beijing. |
Pressure on Beijing and doctor's status cited
BEIJING The Chinese military authorities have released the prominent surgeon who exposed China's SARS cover-up and condemned the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters, apparently bowing to the doctor's status as a hero in China and to international pressure to free him, people informed about his case said.
The doctor, Jiang Yanyong, 72, was allowed to return home late Monday night after about 45 days in military custody, where he was subjected to political indoctrination sessions and investigated for possible criminal activity, according to one person told about his case. He is not expected to be charged with a crime.
Jiang, a senior member of the Communist Party who holds a rank that corresponds to lieutenant general or major general in the West, is expected to be kept under surveillance and to be prohibited from making contact with outsiders. It is possible that his release will be followed by house arrest.
Yet the decision to allow him to return home appears to amount to a rare victory for an individual who directly and repeatedly confronted Communist Party leaders. In a letter released in February, Jiang pressed state leaders to admit that the armed crackdown on demonstrators in and near Tiananmen Square in 1989, perhaps the single most sensitive political vulnerability for China's current generation of leaders, was a mistake.
While there is no evidence that senior officials are reconsidering their position that the action was justified, the decision to detain and then release Jiang suggests that leaders are hamstrung in grappling with high-level dissent on the issue. That may fuel hopes that the party will sooner or later apologize for the brutal suppression of protesters that year.
“I think many people believe that detaining him was stupid,” said a party official interviewed while Jiang was being held. “On the one hand, he can't be allowed to criticize without punishment. But on the other, party elders do not allow their own people to be punished for nothing. He is elderly, he has a certain status, and he did nothing wrong.”
The detention prompted sustained international criticism from human rights groups. Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. national security adviser, urged Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing to release Jiang when she visited Beijing this month.
There was no official announcement of Jiang's detention on June 1, and the government has also said nothing publicly about his release. Jiang's wife and children could not be reached for comment.
But it seems likely that the authorities will claim internally that Jiang exhibited remorse for his actions and, in Chinese party terminology, made progress in his political thinking under the instruction of military authorities who supervised him.
While in custody, Jiang was made to write a “thought report” each day. By the end of his detention, Jiang had altered the report in a way that may allow his interrogators to claim that he had admitted errors, according to the person informed about the case.
Supporters of Jiang grew optimistic about the prospects for his release this month.
On July 7, two officers from the military's General Logistics Department visited Jiang's wife, Hua Zhongwei, and informed her that Jiang had “shown progress in his thoughts.” Hua was shown a seven-page statement written by Jiang that contained reflections that the authorities argued were confessional in tone.
The doctor, this person said, wrote that he had learned that the “Communist Party confronted by the student protests was much like a patient with complicated colorectal cancer where, without emergency surgery, death was imminent.” The statement suggests that Jiang acknowledged the threat the party perceived in the student-led protests. It appears to fall short of an endorsement of the decision to deploy the army to crush the protests.
Jiang has maintained that he had no role in circulating his February letter, which was addressed to top party and government officials, to the domestic or international media. But he acknowledged in his thought report that the letter may have gotten into the hands of people who could use it “for their own purposes.”
Recognizing errors is considered a test of political rehabilitation for those who violate party discipline. The statements as described would appear to fall short of the full self-confession that the authorities often require before releasing an opponent.
Jiang became a well-known national and international figure last year. At that time he disclosed in a letter to top leaders, which was also obtained by the international media, that numerous Beijing hospitals, including the elite No. 301 Military Hospital, where he is a semiretired senior surgeon, had far more SARS patients than health authorities were admitting at the time.
Shortly thereafter, Chinese leaders fired the minister of health and the mayor of Beijing, acknowledged having provided inaccurate information about the spread of the disease and began a massive nationwide effort to combat severe acute respiratory syndrome. Jiang was initially hailed as a hero even by the state media, although coverage soon ceased and he and his family were put under surveillance.
Jiang told friends that as he approached his twilight years he intended to use his newfound celebrity for greater good. In February, it became clear that his target was the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Discussing the event is taboo in party circles. Officials fear that reopening that wound of Tiananmen could lead to demands for political reform and threaten current leaders, nearly all of whom owe their positions to the political upheaval that followed the crackdown.
In a letter addressed to the leadership, and obtained by The New York Times and other publications on the eve of the annual legislative session in March, Jiang described his own role treating wounded civilians on the night of the crackdown, June 4, 1989. He said two party elders, including the former president Yang Shangkun, now deceased, had later told him that the party would sooner or later need to admit that killing civilians was wrong.
The letter was treated as a political emergency, and the surveillance around Jiang was tightened. But it was not until June 1 when, under instructions from Jiang Zemin, the military chief and China's semiretired top official, Jiang and Hua were intercepted on their way to an appointment and taken into custody, people told about his case said.
The conditions of their internment at a military medical facility were unusually comfortable, the person close the family said. Jiang was given a private room and allowed to watch television. Hua, who is a medical researcher, was allowed to visit her husband regularly. She was released in mid-June.
Published in: The New York Times
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