On the recordMarch 4, 2020
Mr. President, yesterday the Senate passed my resolution to honor the life of Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who heroically tried to warn his fellow citizens and the world about the Wuhan coronavirus late last year. Dr. Li tragically fell victim to that very disease but not before he was victimized by his own government, the Chinese Communist Party. Li was 34 years old when he passed away of coronavirus on February 7. He had a wife, a young child, and another child on the way. His whole life was ahead of him, and now his wife is widowed, his child has no father, and his second child will never know his father. As Li knew, when you become a doctor, you pledge to care for the sick and the dying--whatever the hardships, whatever the cost, whatever the risks to yourself. So when patients with a severe pneumonia began appearing in Li's hospital late last year, he sounded the alarm to fellow doctors, and the Chinese Communist Party responded with lightning speed--not to contain this epidemic but to intimidate Dr. Li and attack his reputation. Local Communist goons paid him a visit a few days later, forcing him to retract his statements and apologize for so-called illegal behavior. China's state media piled on, denouncing Li and other whistleblowers as rumormongers who were spreading fear among the Chinese people. That has been the pattern of the Chinese Communist Party's response to the coronavirus from the very beginning--first coverup and then catastrophe.…





