Since the beginning of this year, at least nine faculty and staff members at Chinese universities under the age of 65 have passed away, including some who died suddenly despite appearing healthy, according to obituary notices posted online.
Hu Biliang, executive dean of the Belt and Road Institute and the Institute of Emerging Market Studies, and former dean of the Institute of Economics and Resource Management at Beijing Normal University, died suddenly on April 17. He was 62 years old.
According to a Weibo post, Mr. Hu collapsed on the podium due to a sudden illness while teaching in the early afternoon of April 17. He was rushed to the hospital but died despite medical treatment.
Since Chinese leader Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, Hu has been an ardent advocate of the program. He founded the Belt and Road Research Institute at Beijing Normal University and published dozens of articles on the BRI.
He also made a name for himself in China by openly calling for Chinese women to get more involved with black people and marry them in order to promote BRI, sparking public outrage.
The obituary praised him for being an “outstanding member of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Zheng Mingyuan, associate professor at the School of Real Estate of Beijing Normal University, died of illness on Jan. 10 at the age of 60.
Professor Zhou Yayue, Dean of the School of Public Administration of Zhejiang University of Technology, passed away in Hangzhou on April 9, at the age of 59 due to illness.
Ms. Zhou served as the vice dean of the School of Law and Head of the Department of Public Administration at Ningbo University. In 2010, she became the chief expert of the Ningbo Local Government Governance Research Base of the Ningbo Academy of Social Sciences and an expert in the evaluation of the completion of projects of the National Foundation for Social Sciences.
She was also a member of the Standing Committee of the Zhenhai District Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body.
Cheng Yong, Professor of Chinese Literature at Zhejiang Polytechnic University, passed away on April 6 at the age of 53. Mr. Cheng graduated from the Department of Chinese Literature at Fudan University and received his Ph.D. in Ancient Chinese Literature.
Lu Xiaoying, former dean and party chief of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Southwest Jiaotong University, passed away on March 31 due to illness. She was only 46 years old.
Ms. Lu has received several provincial and ministerial awards and has been honored as an outstanding member of the Chinese Communist Party.
Xia Dunsheng, a professor at Lanzhou University, died in Lanzhou on March 26 at the age of 53 due to illness. Mr. Xia worked as a research professor at the Institute of Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and was selected as one of the “Outstanding Talents of the New Century” by the Ministry of Education in 2009.
Shi Xiongda, party chief of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), died on April 12 at the age of 61 due to illness.
Wu Jialian, Party chief of Guangdong Vocational College of Literature and Arts, passed away on Feb. 27 in Guangzhou at the age of 58 due to illness.
Tao Gertu, director and deputy party chief of the School of Journalism and Communication at Inner Mongolia Normal University, died on Feb. 21 at the age of 54.
In recent years, doctors in China have been forbidden to list COVID-19 as the cause of death on death certificates for deceased patients, and official obituaries have often used the general term “died of disease” without mentioning the specific name of the disease.
As a result, the true number of COVID-19 deaths in China would remain a mystery not only to the outside world but also to the Chinese medical system itself, which has completely lost track of death statistics.
