Update on Tan Qindong, Party Involved in the "Hongmao Medicinal Wine Incident": Cross-provincial Arrests Have Long Become Routine
Yangcheng Evening News recently interviewed Tan Qindong, the person involved in the "Hongmao Medicinal Wine Incident." Eight years ago, he was a doctor in Guangzhou. Because of a popular science article questioning the advertising claims and medication risks of Hongmao Medicinal Wine, he was arrested across provinces by the police in Liangcheng County, Inner Mongolia.
The article was titled "China's Divine Wine 'Hongmao Medicinal Wine,' a Poison from Heaven." Tan Qindong criticized the advertising and the risks to users from a medical perspective. In January 2018, police in Liangcheng County criminally detained him on suspicion of "damaging commercial reputation and commodity reputation," and subsequently arrested him. He was detained for nearly a hundred days. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Procuratorate later intervened, determining that the facts of the case were unclear and the evidence insufficient, and requested the case be returned for supplementary investigation and a change in compulsory measures. Tan Qindong was granted bail pending trial, Hongmao Medicinal Wine withdrew its report and lawsuit, and the case finally ended with an apology, withdrawal of the lawsuit, and settlement.
The Hongmao Medicinal Wine case shocked the entire country at the time. The reason was not complicated: a local enterprise was questioned by a doctor, and local public security could cross thousands of miles to arrest the person from Guangzhou to Inner Mongolia. At that time, many people still found it absurd, thinking it was local protectionism breaking through the bottom line, and that such a thing could not become the norm. Years later, this naivety has been shattered by reality.
Cross-provincial arrests are now commonplace. Police from other regions showing up at one's door, local public security acting on behalf of enterprises or local governments, using criminal procedures to deal with public criticism, and transforming public discussions into "illegal crimes" – these things are appearing with increasing frequency in China's public life. What once shocked the nation now often only appears on social platforms for a few days before being overshadowed by new arrests, new account bans, and new judgments. It's not that society is inherently numb; it's that the density of absurdity is so high that ordinary people have been forced to compress their shock into silence.
The crime of "damaging commercial reputation and commodity reputation," originally a provision in the criminal law, has often been transformed in practice into a tool for enterprises, local governments, and public security organs to suppress critics. If someone questions product quality, exposes corporate problems, or criticizes the local business environment, the enterprise can report it, the public security can file a case, the procuratorate can proceed, and ultimately the individual faces not public debate, but criminal detention, arrest, interrogation, and detention centers. The law here is not a judge; it is a weapon, and whoever is closer to power has easier access to it.
What's even more disgusting is that this logic was later elevated to a national narrative. The CCP now frequently talks about "smearing China," "damaging China's image," "disrupting the business environment," and "singing a dirge for China's economy." Individual criticism of enterprises damages commodity reputation; media exposure of problems smears the local image; external criticism of the system attacks China's development; individuals publicly defending their rights in their own names become tools for foreign forces. The reputation of enterprises, the image of localities, and the dignity of the nation are bundled together, ultimately leading to the same governance actions: silencing, arresting, convicting, and blocking.
This is the true value of the Hongmao Medicinal Wine case. It is not old news, nor is it about an unfortunate doctor encountering a bad locality. It preemptively exposed a standard model of governance in China: local interests need protection, and public security organs can intervene; if corporate reputation is questioned, criminal law can be used; if public opinion escalates, higher authorities can correct it; after the victim's life is ruined, the system does not have to take real responsibility. The so-called rule of law of the CCP is not to support the weak, but to sharpen the knives of the strong.
Even after leaving the detention center, Tan Qindong did not truly escape that arrest. A settlement can close a case file, but it cannot end the personal toll. Public reports show that after his release, he lost his original professional order, suffered long-term psychological trauma, was plagued by PTSD and depression, and his physical condition continued to deteriorate.
According to reports from Yangcheng Evening News, Tan Qindong is now suffering from uremia, requires long hours of dialysis daily, and is saving money to wait for a kidney transplant surgery. He was once a doctor who was arrested across provinces for doing medical popular science; years later, he has become a patient waiting for a kidney source. And waiting for a kidney transplant may be the end of this tragic story, or it may be the beginning of another.
In a normal society, organ transplantation signifies medical progress, donation ethics, and the continuation of life. In China, it is always overshadowed by another concern: the transparency of organ sources, and how many accusations of organs from death row inmates, forced organ harvesting, and organs from political prisoners and prisoners of conscience have been concealed. It cannot be said here that Tan Qindong's kidney transplant is necessarily related to these dark dealings, nor can the life-saving hope of a specific patient be crudely stigmatized. However, when a country's transplant system has long lacked credible transparency, and when accusations of live organ harvesting have not been truly and independently investigated for years, any news of "waiting for a kidney source" carries a chill. Tan Qindong needs to survive, but the way this system provides opportunities for life may itself be built on the deaths of others who have disappeared.
Tan Qindong said in the interview that he does not regret speaking out back then and that society still needs people to tell the truth, but he will check more literature and evidence in the future. This statement sounds restrained, but it is brutal underneath. In a normal society, doctors doing popular science should not have to first calculate whether they will be arrested across provinces; under the CCP, before speaking a word of truth, ordinary people must first consider whether they have the will to withstand the consequences.