Censorship is being tightened, ending a brief period of unusual liberty for social-media users
of Li Wenliang has shaken China like an earthquake. He was a young doctor who was reprimanded by Chinese police for alerting colleagues to a new virus that has now killed more than 1,300 people, Dr Li among them . There was nationwide soul-searching when the ophthalmologist told Chinese media, days before his death on February 6th in Wuhan, Hubei province, that silencing truth-tellers can make a country sick. “I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society,” he said.
Party leaders will not learn to embrace free speech or political pluralism. They know their history and that in Chinese tradition the death of an honest man, wronged by those in power, can be a potent, dangerous event. Many times over the centuries, public gatherings to mourn such people have sparked political crises, including in Communist times. Party chiefs have duly rushed to co-opt Dr Li as a hero whose suffering should be blamed on isolated, local wrongdoing.
. The country’s largest internet platforms have been placed under “special supervision” by cyber-regulators, with extra controls on anything resembling citizen journalism. Yet shows of authority cannot stop the public from brooding about Dr Li. As millions of Chinese read and share accounts of his short life and tragic death, they are being forced to devote unusual attention to their social compact with the country’s authoritarian rulers.
Such confidence is harder now. Dr Li’s last weeks on Earth oblige his fellow citizens to confront the costs of a system without free speech, an uncensored press or independent legal system. Many have read the humiliating letter that police in Wuhan made him sign, agreeing that his truth-telling was in fact a lie that “gravely disturbed social order”.
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