When China’s leading infectious disease expert gently pushed back against his country’s draconian anti-Covid measures, he was hit by what appeared to be a textbook smear operation.

An ardently pro-government Weibo user claimed Dr. Zhang Wenhong, often described by Western media outlets as the country’s answer to Dr. Fauci, had plagiarized his PhD.

The claims prompted Shanghai’s Fudan University, where Zhang got his doctorate in molecular biology in 2000, to announce an investigation into his case, and news outlets outside China picked up the story as a cautionary tale of the consequences of deviating from the party line. 

But when a group of Chinese scientists living in China and abroad claimed there was merit in the allegations against Zhang, the shadowy levers of the Chinese state seem to have launched a hasty clean-up operation to restore Zhang’s international reputation as top scientist.