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The affair has morphed into a discussion about privilege and fairness
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Though the trade war has been a hot topic of debate on Chinese social media over the past month, the Chinese public appears to have been just as exercised about an old-fashioned sex scandal at one of the country’s most elite hospitals. The scandal has morphed into a full-blown debate about privilege, ethics and (the lack of) fairness in Chinese society.
The story broke in mid-April and revolves around a senior surgeon called Xiao Fei at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing. The first the public knew of Mr Xiao was when his estranged wife posted a letter online, alleging that he had been having affairs with work colleagues, including a junior doctor called Dong Xiying. The letter also accused Mr Xiao and Ms Dong of walking out of a surgical theatre where he was preparing for an operation, and leaving the anaesthetised patient unattended by a doctor for 40 minutes.
The hospital announced on April 27th that it had investigated the allegations and found they were “basically true”. It said Mr Xiao had been sacked and expelled from the Communist Party. (He told state media that he had not violated medical ethics, that he had left the patient for 10-20 minutes in the care of anaesthetists, and the reason for doing so was to defuse a dispute with a nurse.)
That was not enough to satisfy some members of the public, who suspected there was more to the story and had already started sniffing around. Top hospitals are redoubts of a health-care system that many citizens view as deeply unfair. Seeing specialists requires hours or even days of queuing. Treatment can be costly, often prohibitively so for the poor or migrants from the countryside. So if there was dirt, there were plenty of ordinary people willing to dig it up.
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Back-door admissions
What they revealed was that Ms Dong had got her start in medicine on an experimental programme known as the “4+4” at Peking Union Medical College, one of the nation’s most prestigious. The scheme offers outstanding students with an undergraduate degree in another discipline an accelerated path to qualification as a doctor after four years, rather than the usual pathway which takes more than a decade. Ms Dong had studied economics at Barnard College in New York. Netizens asked why an American economics degree meant she needed only four years of medical school, and whether the 4+4 programme was simply a back door for the well-connected into a profession where people’s health and indeed lives were on the line.
In late April and early May the topic became one of the hottest online. On Weibo, a microblog platform, posts with the hashtag “Xiao Fei has been dismissed, when will Dong Xiying’s issues be investigated?” attracted more than 200m views. Some of China’s tabloid media joined the fray. “Frankly, this farce has evolved into an issue of social fairness,” Jimu News, an online service, posted to its Weibo account. It referred to reports that Ms Dong’s papers had suddenly disappeared from an academic database. “Could there be some hidden secrets that cannot see the light of day, prompting a hasty cover-up?”
Difficult operations
The scandal has put the authorities on the spot. Though they can sometimes suppress news completely, once a scandal gathers steam it can become more dangerous to try to squash it. So they try to manage it. State media have covered the main developments, but censors have struggled to keep online debate in check. It has veered into withering criticism of official corruption in hospitals and academia; of callous self-centredness among the well-connected; and, above all, of the way that plum jobs get taken by the high-born. As the economy falters and work becomes harder to find, the Communist Party is even less keen than usual to encourage discussion about such matters.
On May 15th the health ministry announced that Mr Xiao and Ms Dong had been stripped of their licences to work as physicians. The government will be hoping that those punishments—and the ministry’s promise to conduct a “comprehensive assessment” of the kind of fast-track scheme that Ms Dong joined—will put the whole affair to rest. By sacrificing the protagonists, it may be able to avoid making any further serious changes. Not surprisingly, the story has been pulled from Weibo’s list of “hot searches”.
Though the scandal has left a bitter taste, the public seems not to have lost its ability to laugh. One joke online has a patient admitting that he pulled strings to be treated at that particular hospital, whereupon the surgeon confesses that he, too, used contacts to get his job. The assistant surgeon admits the same. Finally the virus asks, “Am I the only one who got here on his own merits?” ■
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WorldChina.css-v7aorn{margin-top:0.875rem;}.css-v7aorn +.eq1asik0{margin-top:3rem;padding-bottom:0;}.el1rg701+.css-v7aorn{margin-top:0;}.css-9ejc71{position:relative;border-bottom:0;border-top:0.0625rem solid var(—mb-colour-greyscale-london-85);color:var(—mb-colour-greyscale-london-35);}.css-9ejc71 .ebxshaw0{margin-top:0;}.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0>*{padding:var(—mb-spacing-md) 0;}.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0>*:nth-of-type(2){border-top:0.0625rem solid var(—mb-colour-greyscale-london-85);}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0>*:nth-of-type(2){border-top:0;}}.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0 .e5z0ibw0{gap:var(—mb-spacing-sm);}.css-yb4x8x{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-items:stretch;-webkit-box-align:stretch;-ms-flex-align:stretch;align-items:stretch;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:flex-start;justify-content:flex-start;}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-yb4x8x{-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;}}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-yb4x8x{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-yb4x8x{-webkit-box-pack:end;-ms-flex-pack:end;-webkit-justify-content:flex-end;justify-content:flex-end;}}.css-1j1j36d{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-flex-wrap:wrap;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;row-gap:0.6rem;-webkit-column-gap:var(—mb-spacing-sm);column-gap:var(—mb-spacing-sm);}ShareReuse this content.css-169lzn0{position:relative;-webkit-align-self:auto;-ms-flex-item-align:auto;align-self:auto;display:none;}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-start:9;}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-start:13;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-end:13;}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-end:17;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-row-start:1;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-row-end:span 4;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{display:block;}}.css-169lzn0:last-child::after{height:0;}.css-1y1zooy{display:inline;}.css-1y1zooy >*+*{margin-top:2rem;}.css-1y1zooy >*:only-child{margin-top:1.25rem;}.css-1y1zooy >*:last-child{position:-webkit-sticky;position:sticky;top:1.5rem;}.css-z2cag9{margin-top:6rem;}
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.css-1awed3c{font-family:var(—mb-typeface-serif);font-size:var(—mb-typestyle-title-4-size);font-variant:var(—mb-typestyle-title-4-figures);font-weight:normal;line-height:var(—mb-typestyle-title-4-leading);}.css-1awed3c a{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;color:var(—mb-colour-greyscale-london-5);display:block;}.css-1awed3c a:hover,.css-1awed3c a:hover{color:var(—mb-colour-base-chicago-30);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1awed3c a:focus,.css-1awed3c a:focus{background-color:var(—mb-colour-base-chicago-95);color:var(—mb-colour-greyscale-london-5);outline:none;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1awed3c a:active,.css-1awed3c a:active{color:var(—mb-colour-base-chicago-30);}.css-1awed3c a::before{bottom:0;content:»;display:block;left:0;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;position:absolute;right:0;text-indent:-999em;top:0;white-space:nowrap;z-index:1;}.css-1awed3c+.esimp700,.css-1awed3c+style+.esimp700{margin-top:0.5rem;}
China’s universities are wooing Western scientists
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And they are reaching beyond academics with Chinese heritage
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.css-ayljkz{font-family:var(—mb-typeface-serif);font-size:var(—mb-typestyle-title-3-size);font-variant:var(—mb-typestyle-title-3-figures);font-weight:normal;line-height:var(—mb-typestyle-title-3-leading);}.css-ayljkz a{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;color:var(—mb-colour-greyscale-london-5);display:block;}.css-ayljkz a:hover,.css-ayljkz a:hover{color:var(—mb-colour-base-chicago-30);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-ayljkz a:focus,.css-ayljkz a:focus{background-color:var(—mb-colour-base-chicago-95);color:var(—mb-colour-greyscale-london-5);outline:none;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-ayljkz a:active,.css-ayljkz a:active{color:var(—mb-colour-base-chicago-30);}.css-ayljkz a::before{bottom:0;content:»;display:block;left:0;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;position:absolute;right:0;text-indent:-999em;top:0;white-space:nowrap;z-index:1;}.css-ayljkz+.esimp700,.css-ayljkz+style+.esimp700{margin-top:0.5rem;}
How China became cool
Western livestreamers and Chinese video games have burnished the country’s image
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Young Chinese are turning to AI chatbots for friendship and love
It is not doing anything for the low birth rate
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China is celebrating victory against American trade warriors
But its negotiating triumph comes with two stings in the tail
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Xi Jinping has Vladimir Putin over a barrel
Despite a show of comradely solidarity in Moscow, the two are not equal partners
Hong Kong’s richest man is caught between China and America
Li Ka-shing’s ports on the Panama canal have drawn fire from Donald Trump
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Источник: www.economist.com