As an official’s son visiting the U.K. back in 1989, Xiao was afraid to talk about the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. But this January, as word spread among his friends that a Wuhan doctor had contracted the virus sweeping the Chinese city, he spoke up.
"Situation is very ill-condition in Wuhan. Take care of yourself! The case this time could be even worse than 2003,” he wrote on the messaging app WeChat, referencing the SARS outbreak 17 years earlier. Xiao wrote the message partially in English to evade official censors, as Chinese authorities still hadn’t acknowledged human-to-human transmission.
Now, the Communist Party member says he’s still angry over the local government’s attempts to cover up a disease that has now killed more than 140,000 globally, including 3,300 in China. Like many who endured the 11-week lockdown in Wuhan, Xiao believes the government must become more transparent and more receptive to the people’s concerns.