Coronavirus: 'When Fury Overcomes Fear,' a 'Viral Alarm' by Xu Zhangrun

This essay on the Wuhan coronavirus by Xu Zhangrun, translated from the original Chinese and annotated by Geremie R. Barm on Chinafile.com, is absolutely amazing. I'm grateful it is now available for English-speaking audiences.

"rage against this injustice; let your lives burn with a flame of decency." Tsinghua professor Xu Zhangrun's passionate essay on the coronavirus epidemic is out in English, translated by Geremie Barm. https://t.co/CNNyI6BzRr @chinaheritage

— Chris Buckley (@ChuBailiang) February 10, 2020

Excerpt first from the translator's notes:

In July 2018, the Tsinghua University professor Xu Zhangrun published an unsparing critique of the Chinese Communist Party and its Chairman of Everything, Xi Jinping. Xu warned of the dangers of one-man rule, a sycophantic bureaucracy, putting politics ahead of professionalism and the myriad other problems that the system would encounter if it rejected further reforms. That philippic was one of a cycle of works that Xu wrote during a year in which he alerted his readers to pressing issues related to Chinas momentous struggle with modernity, the state of the nation under Xi Jinping and the mixed prospects for its future. Those essays will be published in a collection titled Six Chapters from the 2018 Year of the Dog by Hong Kong City University Press in May this year. Although he was demoted by Tsinghua University in March 2019 and banned from teaching, writing and publishing, Xu has remained defiant. His latest polemical workWhen Fury Overcomes Feartranslated below, appeared online on February 4, 2020 as the coronavirus epidemic swept China and infections overseas sparked concern around the world.