How China Is Controlling the COVID Origins Narrative — Silencing Critics and Locking Up Dissenters

In an interview before her detention, she said: “Maybe I have a rebellious soul … I’m just documenting the truth. Why can’t I show the truth?”

Zhang is just one of many critics whom the government has attempted to silence.

Chinese law professor Xu Zhangrun was detained by police for a week after writing articles critical of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and then fired from his position at a university. He remains under surveillance and has been banned from leaving Beijing, but he continues to write.

Others have simply disappeared. The outspoken lawyer and citizen journalist Chen Qiushi went missing in February after reporting from Wuhan and didn’t reappear until late September. He also remained under “strict supervision” by the authorities.

And Wuhan businessman Fang Bin, who was detained in early February after posting videos purporting to show COVID victims inside hospitals, hasn’t been heard from since.

Using the Security System and Courts to Target Civil Society
Under Xi’s leadership, the Communist Party has become increasingly vigorous in guarding the official propaganda around party ideology and Xi’s rule from any form of criticism.

While Xi emphasized in a 2013 speech the importance of the propaganda and “ideological leadership” to the country, the pandemic has allowed China’s party-state to extend its ideological control over the courts, eliminating any pretense of judicial autonomy.

This manipulation of rule-of-law institutions can be seen in the prosecution of citizen journalists like Zhang Zhan and anyone else who questions or criticizes the official party line.

Marxist scholars and party propagandists argue there are no contradictions between party ideology and “rule of law”. In China, they say, there is no need for a legal separation of powers to ensure justice because the party is the ultimate expression of the people’s will when it comes to law and order.

In essence, the Communist Party is the rule of law, with Chinese characteristics.

The party has long used the security system and courts in this way to “kill chickens to scare monkeys” (a Chinese idiom meaning to punish an individual as an example to others).

In the past, the targets have typically been prominent political dissidents, such as Liu Xiaobo and Wei Jingsheng, and human rights lawyers.

What is new and disturbing is the use of this tactic to eradicate all dissent and perceived threats to the party’s rule from civil society. Those targeted in recent years include Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun, Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai and Chinese-Australian journalist Cheng Lei, as well as many foreigners.

Forced Silence Does Not Mean Public Belief
This domestic political context makes it unlikely the WHO researchers will be allowed to fully investigate all hypotheses as to the origins of the coronavirus, such as the claim it could have been caused by a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Although China’s so-called “Bat Woman”, virologist Shi Zhengli, has said she’d welcome a visit by the WHO team to the lab, leaked government documents tell another story.

According to the documents, published by the Associated Press this month, the government is monitoring scientists’ findings and requiring any research to be approved by a new task force under Xi’s direct command before publication.

Zhang’s case reveals how challenges to official narratives are now being dealt with in China. It also shows that Chinese citizens do not always find official narratives convincing and propagandists cannot force them to believe in ideology. The forced silencing of critics does not equate to people believing in the official party line.

With the origins of COVID-19, China’s citizens — and the world — deserve truth, not politically convenient spin.

John GarrickUniversity Fellow in Law, Charles Darwin University. Yan Bennett is Assistant Director, Princeton University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.