The National Expert Committee on Disease Prevention and Control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was recently established, with Liang Wannian, who vigorously promoted the “dynamic zero-COVID” policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, appointed as the director. CCP’s chief biochemical weapons expert, Chen Wei, and Wang Jianwei, responsible for the leak of the SARS virus, were appointed as deputy directors, which has attracted attention.
According to the official website of the CCP Center for Disease Control and Prevention, on September 10th, the inaugural meeting of the National Expert Committee on Disease Prevention and Control was held in Beijing. Shen Hongbing, Deputy Director of the National Health Commission and Director of the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, delivered a speech, while Zhang Yong, Deputy Director of the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, presided over the meeting.
The committee convened its first full committee meeting, where it confirmed that Professor Liang Wannian from Tsinghua University would serve as the director, with Academician Chen Wei from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Researcher Wang Jianwei from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention as deputy directors.
All three individuals are controversial figures.
Liang Wannian, 64, served as the Director of the CCP’s National Health Commission’s Reform Office in 2018 and was the Executive Vice Dean of the Wanhua Public Health and Health School at Tsinghua University from 2020 to January 2025. During the three-year COVID-19 pandemic, Xi Jinping, the CCP leader, personally advocated for the strict and controlling “dynamic zero-COVID” epidemic prevention policy, which led to numerous humanitarian disasters and sparked significant public grievances. Liang Wannian was one of the main proponents implementing the CCP’s dynamic zero-COVID policy, serving as the head of the epidemic prevention expert group at the time.
In April 2022, as the COVID-19 epidemic spread to 30 provinces across the country, Liang Wannian insisted in an interview on adhering to the overarching principle of “dynamic zero-COVID.” He claimed that by extinguishing one epidemic after another, achieving dynamic zero-COVID on a societal level would ultimately defeat the epidemic. However, by the end of the year, authorities suddenly abandoned the “zero-COVID” policy and unexpectedly lifted containment measures, causing the epidemic to spiral out of control and engulf the entire country, with hospitals and funeral homes overwhelmed.
Chen Wei has been appointed as the deputy director of the CCP National Expert Committee on Disease Prevention and Control. She is an academician of the CCP Engineering Academy and holds the rank of Rear Admiral, known as the CCP’s chief biochemical weapons expert. After the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, many people suspected a possible connection between the outbreak and the Wuhan P4 virus laboratory. At the time, the CCP urgently sent Chen Wei to take over the Wuhan P4 virus laboratory, leading to suspicions that she was tasked with cleaning up the aftermath of the virus leak and covering up the truth.
Additionally, the close relationship between the ethnic Chinese researchers Qiu Xiangguo and her husband, who were dismissed from the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory for leaking secrets to the CCP, and Chen Wei has previously sparked speculation.
Wang Jianwei, who has been appointed as the deputy director of the CCP National Expert Committee on Disease Prevention and Control, currently serves as the Director (President) of the CCP Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China Academy of Preventive Medicine). He was embroiled in a negative controversy during the SARS (referred to by the CCP as “atypical pneumonia”) epidemic outbreak.
In November 2002, the SARS epidemic broke out in Guangdong Province, spreading nationwide in 2003 and globally thereafter. According to the magazine “Caijing,” on April 25, 2004, the CCP Ministry of Health spokesperson confirmed that the “SARS” epidemic may have originated from a laboratory infection.
On July 1, 2004, the CCP Ministry of Health’s investigation confirmed that due to the unauthorized operation of a student of Wang Jianwei, who was then a deputy researcher at the CCP Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a serious SARS virus leak occurred. As a result, Wang Jianwei was relieved of his duties as director of the diarrhea virus laboratory. However, he continued to be promoted thereafter.
It is worth noting that before the establishment of the National Expert Committee on Disease Prevention and Control of the CCP, on September 18, 2010, the CCP Ministry of Health announced the establishment of a “Health Ministry Expert Committee on Disease Prevention and Control,” with Wang Longde, President (Academician) of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, serving as the chairman, and deputy chairmen from institutions such as the Chinese Medical Association and the China Sexually Transmitted Disease and AIDS Prevention Association.