Jiang Yanyong, Who Helped Expose China’s SARS Crisis, Dies at 91

He turned recognized for his precision, regular palms and willingness to tackle tough instances, incomes him the nickname “Courageous Jiang.”

However his idealism didn’t final lengthy. In 1966, Mao unleashed the Cultural Revolution, the decade-long interval of chaos that upended Chinese language society. Teams of militant youths often called Pink Guards roved the nation, decided to root out “class enemies.” Dr. Jiang, whose father had been a banker and whose cousin was an official within the rival Nationalist get together in Taiwan, was a straightforward goal.

Branded a counterrevolutionary, he was imprisoned, overwhelmed and later despatched to a jail farm for 5 years within the distant deserts of Qinghai Province in western China, away from his spouse and kids. After he was politically rehabilitated within the early Nineteen Seventies, he returned to No. 301 hospital, the place he finally labored his approach as much as chief of surgical procedure.

He retired within the early 2000s, however he continued to deal with sufferers and mentor youthful medical doctors. In 2004, he was awarded the celebrated Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in recognition of his “courageous stand for fact in China, spurring lifesaving measures to confront and include the lethal menace of SARS.”

Along with Ms. Jiang, his daughter, he’s survived by his spouse, Hua Zhongwei, and a son, Jiang Qing.

Dr. Jiang by no means backed down with regards to Tiananmen Sq.. In 2019, earlier than the thirtieth anniversary of the crackdown, he wrote a letter to Xi Jinping, China’s chief, once more demanding justice for the “crime” of 1989. Quickly after, the 87-year-old physician was once more below home arrest.

Like others who challenged Communist Get together coverage, he was largely erased from the official file, and he was generally painted as a wrongdoer for having spoken out.