Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for corruption and other offenses—recently published an open letter to Xi Jinping, urging that her father be released on compassionate medical parole. Ren Zhiqiang was an outspoken critic of Xi Jinping’s authoritarian rule and COVID pandemic policies. He was detained by Chinese Communist Party disciplinary authorities in March of 2020, soon after publishing a fiery essay in which he called Xi a “clown” and criticized Xi’s intolerance of dissent and his response to the COVID pandemic. In September of 2020, after a secretive one-day trial during which Ren was denied legal representation, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Dear Chairman Xi Jinping:
Greetings! As Ren Zhiqiang’s daughter, I implore you, on humanitarian grounds, to allow my father to be released on compassionate medical parole so that he can receive medical treatment abroad, be reunited with his family, and receive the treatment and care he deserves in the final stage of his life.
Before he was imprisoned, my father was diagnosed with severe prostate disease and required urgent surgery. During his imprisonment, he has not had access to either surgery or effective treatment, and his condition has continued to worsen. For quite some time, he has been suffering from excruciating pain and the need to go to the bathroom ten or more times each night, making it impossible for him to sleep normally. In recent months, he has been diagnosed with asthma and his health has deteriorated even further. Despite our many earnest entreaties, he has still not been allowed to have surgery, causing us great despair.
My brother was also implicated in my father’s case and given a severe nine-year prison sentence. In the four years since my father was imprisoned, our family has never truly been reunited. Illness and imprisonment have shattered and nearly destroyed our family.
As a daughter of this broken family, I hope to help my father secure this, his last opportunity for compassionate medical treatment. I implore my country’s government to exhibit the most rudimentary humanitarian concern and respect for human life by permitting my father to be released on medical parole so that he can receive treatment abroad and spend the remainder of his life peacefully, in the company of his loved ones.
I am willing to promise that my father will never issue any statements or engage in any public speech after he goes abroad for treatment. As a septuagenarian in seriously ill health, he is utterly incapable of causing any trouble for you or for the nation.
Chairman Xi Jinping, we have previously made the aforementioned appeal several times via the normal channels, but have yet to receive a good-faith response. Thus we have no choice but to use this method [of an open letter] to communicate to you our desperate appeal. Please give my father the opportunity to go abroad for medical treatment. This represents not only the last hope for our family, but also respect for a man’s life. A tolerant and compassionate decision on your part would be an historical testament to your benevolence and broad-mindedness, rather than a painful and regrettable legacy.
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Ren Zhiqiang’s daughter [Ren Xinyi]
October 2, 2024 [Chinese]
Nikkei Asia’s Kenji Kawase reported on the content of the letter, the background to Ren’s case, and the punishment of other critics of Xi who have been similarly sidelined over the years:
The elder Ren, a former chairman of state-owned developer Huayuan, is widely known in mainland China as “Ren Cannon” for his unusual frankness in a country where freedom of speech is strictly controlled. Many believe his candid nature led to his downfall and imprisonment.
[…] The letter was posted on Ren Xinyi’s WeChat account, and a source close to the family confirmed its authenticity for Nikkei Asia.
[…] The version of the letter being circulated online has a time stamp at the bottom stating that it is a screenshot taken one minute after the original release. This suggests Ren Xinyi tried to save the content before it could be wiped out by Beijing’s censors.
[…Ren Zhiqiang] was detained in July of [2020], stripped of his Chinese Communist Party membership and charged with corruption. In a secret trial, he was convicted of illegally gaining 112 million yuan (about $15.9 million at the current rate) and sentenced to 18 years in prison by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court in September 2020.
“The corruption charges against Ren Zhiqiang are a thin cover for President Xi Jinping’s intolerance of dissent,” Yaqiu Wang, then China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said of the case. “The 18-year sentence handed down to a Communist Party member and member of the economic elite shows the grim environment for speech in China.” [Source]
Xi Jinping’s long-running anti-corruption campaign has netted both “tigers and flies,” big players and small, among them some of Xi’s most vocal critics. Many experts and analysts have characterized the campaign as yet another way to enforce personal loyalty to Xi and his policies. As William Zheng reported for the South China Morning Post, the campaign continues unabated, with this year on track to break 2023’s record haul of 45 “tigers”:
With three months still to go on the calendar, China’s top anti-corruption watchdog has detained nearly the same number of “tigers” as it did last year, setting a fresh record for President Xi Jinping’s signature clean-up campaign.
The latest “tiger” to fall is again one of its own, a senior inspector from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) – China’s top political disciplinary and anti-corruption agency.
Li Gang, a disciplinary head, had been deputed by the CCDI to the Central Organisation Department – the ruling Communist Party’s top personnel office.
The CCDI announced on Monday that Li was “under disciplinary review and supervision investigation” for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law” – a common official euphemism for corruption.
Three other senior officials have also been placed under investigation on similar charges over the past fortnight. [Source]
