(New York) On July 19, six weeks after his disappearance, Dr. Jiang Yanyong is home but not free. The military authorities who detained the 72-year-old army surgeon have made it clear that his case is not over and that there will be restrictions on his movements. He is under an undefined “gag-and-travel order” that limits his ability to speak to anyone but his patients and then only about medical matters. The People’s Liberation Army 301 Hospital, his work unit, must clear all personal travel.
Dr. Jiang dared, not just once but twice, to confront the Chinese Communist Party leadership. In 2003, the then-relatively unknown doctor publicly blew the whistle on Chinese attempts to cover up the SARS epidemic in China. Publicly acknowledged as a hero, yet under quiet but constant surveillance and harassment after the revelations, Dr. Jiang experienced his official status deteriorate markedly in February 2004 after he wrote to China’s leaders urging that the official verdict on the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement be overturned. In graphic language he described what he witnessed in his hospital’s emergency room on the night of June 4, 1989—the night of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He condemned, without reservation, those Chinese leaders responsible for killing and maiming “unarmed students and citizens.”
During his detention, Dr. Jiang underwent intensive “thought reform” monitored, in part, by the 7-page “thought report” he submitted each day. Until the final one, written shortly before his release, they did not vary. In this last report, which the authorities could hold up as proof of his progress, he wrote that “Assuming the information provided to him by the authorities was correct,” he had come to recognize another aspect of the 1989 massacre in Beijing. He also acknowledged that his letter to government officials could have been used by others for their own purposes. In return, investigators acknowledged that Dr. Jiang was as “honest a man as they had ever encountered.” He is still, however expected to write and sign a “Concluding Statement.”
The Communist Party’s handling of what has come to be known as the Tiananmen Square massacre is still the most politically sensitive issue in China today. Others who have criticized the then leadership have been harshly punished. It is unclear what factors permitted a compromise to be reached in Dr. Jiang’s case.
