More than one hundred China experts and senior political figures, including an Estonian MP, Yoko Alender, and Marcus Kolga, an Estonian Canadian journalist and a former president of the Estonian Central Council in Canada, have signed an open letter describing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government’s cover up of COVID-19 as “China’s Chernobyl moment”; Estonian World publishes the letter in full.
The group of signatories include some of the world’s leading authorities on Chinese politics, law and modern history. The open letter responds to another open letter released by a group of China-based establishment academics who accused critical voices of “politicising” the COVID-19 pandemic – the narrative of which has also been frequently repeated by CCP government official spokespeople, and also, recently, by the head of the World Health Organisation. “The CCP government has launched a crackdown on Chinese journalists reporting critically on the COVID-19 crisis and it is now censoring scientific research on the origins of the pandemic,” the signatories said in a press statement.
An open letter to Chinese citizens and friends of China at home and abroad
The current global crisis has been caused by the regime so many of you have been tolerating or supporting for decades.
On 2 April 2020, a group of one hundred Chinese establishment scholars wrote an open letter decrying the “many critical voices politicising the COVID-19 pandemic”. They stated that “(at) this stage of the pandemic, the exact source and origin of COVID-19 remain undetermined, but these questions are unimportant and finger pointing is demeaning and hurtful to everyone”. They also argued against what they alleged is the politicising of the epidemic.
The open letter exemplifies what the independent intellectual Professor Xu Zhangrun has called the “ridiculous ‘Red Culture’ and the nauseating adulation that the system heaps on itself via shameless pro-Party hacks who chirrup hosannahs at every turn.”
Professor Xu – now under house arrest – has called on his compatriots to stop their uncritical support for the Chinese Communist Party, and instead to “rage against this injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency; break through the stultifying darkness and welcome the dawn.”
While the exact source and spread of the virus are not clear, yet the question of origin is highly important, for the people of China and for all humankind: only by understanding how this global disaster could emerge we can prevent it from happening again.
The roots of the pandemic are in a cover-up by CCP authorities in Wuhan, Hubei province. Under the influence of the CCP, the World Health Organisation first downplayed the pandemic. Taiwanese health officials also allege that they ignored their alerts of human-to-human transmission in late December. Under pressure from the CCP, democratic Taiwan – which has coped with the pandemic in exemplary fashion – is excluded from the WHO.
We should never forget that China’s Chernobyl moment was a self-inflicted wound. The CCP silenced Chinese doctors who wanted to warn other health professionals during the early stage of the outbreak: Dr Ai Fen can no longer appear in public after accepting a domestic media interview; her colleague Dr Li Wenliang died while fighting the virus in Wuhan. On his deathbed Dr Li famously said that “a healthy society shouldn’t have only one voice.”
The Chinese entrepreneur Ren Zhiqiang wrote that “without a media representing the interests of the people by publishing the actual facts, the people’s lives are being ravaged by both the virus and the major illness of the system”. He disappeared on 12 March.
The courageous citizen journalists Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua, who tried to report freely about the situation in Wuhan, now are also missing.
Mainland China’s political malaise goes beyond the leadership failure of Xi Jinping. In a recent video message, a young student called Zhang Wenbin reflected on his evolution from an uncritical CCP supporter to a critical citizen with a conscience: “Since I scaled the Great Firewall, I gradually came to the realisation that the Chinese Communist Party has extended its dragon claws into every corner of the world, including collective farming [1950s], the Cultural Revolution [1966-1976], the Great Famine [1958-1961], the One-Child Policy, the Tiananmen massacre [1989], as well as the persecution of the Falun Gong [spiritual movement], and the peoples of Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang…Yet everyone continues to turn a blind eye, singing the party’s praises. I just can’t bear it.” Zhang disappeared shortly after recording his message. His friends fear he will face interrogation and torture by the secret police.
The global pandemic forces us all to confront an inconvenient truth: by politicising all aspects of life including people’s health, continued autocratic one-party rule in the People’s Republic of China has endangered everyone. Rather than trusting the CCP’s intentions and accepting establishment academics’ uncritical approval of the party-state’s policies, we should pay greater attention to the voices of what can be termed ‘unofficial’ China. These independent-minded academics, doctors, entrepreneurs, citizen journalists, public interest lawyers and young students no longer accept the CCP’s rule by fear. Neither should you.
As an international group of public figures, security policy analysts and China watchers, we stand in solidarity with courageous and conscientious Chinese citizens including Xu Zhangrun, Ai Fen, Li Wenliang, Ren Zhiqiang, Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin, Li Zehua, Xu Zhiyong, and Zhang Wenbin, just to name a few of the real heroes and martyrs who risk their life and liberty for a free and open China. Their individual voices are already forming a chorus. They demand nothing less than a critical evaluation of the impact of CCP policies on the lives of Chinese citizens and citizens around the world. We urge you to join them.
Signatories (in alphabetical order)
Judith Abitan, Executive Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and a Human Rights Advocate
Mantas Adomėnas MP, Parliament of Lithuania
Yoko Alender MP, Parliament of Estonia
Lord Alton of Liverpool, House of Lords, United Kingdom
Lord Andrew Adonis, House of Lords, United Kingdom
Dibyesh Anand, University of Westminster
Matteo Angioli, Global Committee for the Rule of Law “Marco Pannella”
Nathan Attrill, Australian National University
Rt Hon Norman Baker, Former Home Affairs minister, UK government
Christopher Balding, Fulbright University Vietnam
Geremie R. Barmé, Historian, Professor Emeritus, The Australian National University
Bastiaan Belder, Historian, Rapporteur European Parliament on EU-China relations 2004-2019
Stephen Blank, Senior Fellow, FPRI.org
Anne-Marie Brady, Global Fellow, Kissinger Institute on China and the US, Wilson Center, USA; Professor in Political Science and International Relations, University Canterbury, NZ
Charles Burton, Macdonald-Laurier Institute and European Values Center for Security Policy
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University
William A. Callahan, Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics
Kevin Carrico, Monash University
Duanjie Chen, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
Jerome A. Cohen, Founding Director, US-Asia Law Institute, New York University
J Michael Cole, University of Nottingham and Senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Ottawa, Canada
Damian Collins MP, House of Commons, United Kingdom
Stéphane Corcuff, University of Lyon
Irwin Cotler, Chair of the Raoul Centre for Human Rights, Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
Halyna Coynash, Kharkiv Human Rights Group
Hon Michael Danby MP, Seven term MP, former Parliamentary Secretary & past Chao Australian Parliament Foreign Affairs & Defence Committee
Michael Danielsen, Taiwan Corner
David A. Dayton, Utah Valley University
Axel Dessein, King’s College London
Horst Fabian, Independent researcher and Europe – China civil society Ambassador
Willy Fautré, Human Rights Without Frontiers
Antonia Finnane, University of Melbourne
Isaac Stone Fish, Senior Fellow, Asia Society
Anna Fotyga, European Parliament
Andrew Foxall, Henry Jackson Society
Vanessa Frangville, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Aaron L. Friedberg, Princeton University
Andreas Fulda, University of Nottingham, School of Politics and International Relations
Daniel Garrett, Securing Tianxia
Angela Gui, University of Cambridge
Martin Hála, Sinopsis and Charles University
Clive Hamilton, Charles Sturt University, Canberra
Dan Harris, Harris Bricken
Laura Harth, Global Committee for the Rule of Law “Marco Pannella”
John Hemmings, Henry Jackson Society
Frank Herschel Finch III, University of New Haven
Michael Hsiao, Academia Sinica
Massimo Introvigne, Sociologist, editor in chief of Bitter Winter
Dolkun Isa, World Uyghur Congress
Jakub Janda, Director, European Values Center for Security Policy, Prague, Czech Republic
Filip Jirouš, Sinopsis
Rasa Juknevičienė, European Parliament
Thierry Kellner, Université libre de Bruxelles
Tinatin Khidasheli, Civic IDEA, Former Minister of Defence, Georgia
Tamar Kintsurashvili, Media Development Foundation
Ondřej Klimeš, Researcher, Czech Academy of Sciences
Marcus Kolga, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
Marko Kovic, Independent researcher and writer in Zurich, Switzerland
Andrius Kubilius, European Parliament
Gabrielius Landsbergis, Chairman of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats
Nathan Law Kwun Chung, Demosisto
Gregory Lee, University of Lyon
Anastasia Lin, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
Petra Lindberg, SHRIC -Supporting Human Rights In China
Jan Lipavský MP, House of Commons, Czech Republic
Dimon Liu, Independent human rights activist
Olga Lomová, Charles University
Edward Lucas, Author, journalist, and senior vice-president, Center for European Policy Analysis
Nicola Macbean, The Rights Practice
Rahima Mahmut, Uyghur Human Rights Activiest, U.K. Project Director, World Uyghur Congress
Paul Maidowski, Fletcher School alumn
Jonathan Manthorpe, International Affairs Commentator and author of “Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada” and “Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan.”
Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Distinguished Fellow, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
Stewart McDonald MP, House of Commons, United Kingdom
John Minford, Emeritus Professor of Chinese Studies, Australian National University
David Missal, Sinologist and Freelance Journalist
Alan Mendoza, The Henry Jackson Society
Juraj Mesík, Slovak Foreign Policy Association
Giorgi Moldini, Stratcom Georgia
Enrique Miguel Sanchez Motos, Senior Civil Servant. President of Association for the Defense of Freedom of Conscience
John MacKenzie Nicolson, House of Commons, United Kingdom
Manyan Ng, International Society for Human Rights
Valérie Niquet, China and Asia specialist
Mareike Ohlberg, Analyst, Mercator Institute for China Studies
Kyle Olbert, Citizens of the American Republic
Jojje Olsson, Swedish journalist
Shaun O’Dwyer, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, Kyushu University
Katarzyna Pejda, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland
Andrew J Phelan, Med Tech Entrepreneur
Johnathan Pollock, Editor, 9DashLine
Patrick Poon, PhD researcher, Université Jean Moulin (Lyon III)
Katerina Prochazkova, Sinopsis
Luke de Pulford, Coalition for Genocide Response
Jafer Qureshi, Consultant Psychiatrist – Fellow Of the Royal College of Psychiatry. Philanthropist
Aaron Rhodes, President, Forum for Religious Freedom Europe
Pablo Rodríguez-Merino, University of Warwick
Benedict Rogers, Deputy Chair of Conservative Party Human Rights Commission & Chair of Hong Kong Watch
Bert-Jan Ruissen, Member of the European Parliament
Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, President of the “Global Committee for the Rule of Law- Marco Pannella”
Łukasz Sarek, Researcher, Asia Explained
Katarzyna Sarek, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Puma Shen, National Taipei University
Radosław Sikorski, European Parliament
Duncan Stirling, Former participant; EU-China Managers Exchange and Training Programme. Former foreign expert; China Central Television
Mark Stokes, The Project 2049 Institute
May-Britt U. Stumbaum, Freie Universität Berlin
Didi Kirsten Tatlow, Sinopsis
Thierry Valle, President, Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, University of California, Irvine
Michael B. Yahuda, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics; Visiting Scholar, George Washington University
Jianli Yang, Founder and President of Citizen Power Initiatives for China
Solomon Yue, CEO of Republicans Overseas & Republican National Committeeman for Oregon
Anna Zádrapová, Sinopsis
Michal Zelcer-Lavid, Bar-Ilan University
Adrian Zenz, Senior fellow in China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Peter Zoehrer, FOREF Europe
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The opinions in this article are those of the authors. Cover: The Chinese Communist Party’s congress in Beijing. The image is illustrative (Wikipedia).
