In Memory of Zhu Ling: One Year After Her Passing
朱令逝世一周年祭
By Er Xiang (二湘) of “Eleven-Dimensional Space”
【Editor’s Note: Zhu Ling (朱令) passed away a year ago on the winter solstice, marking the darkest day for her family. Tsinghua alumnus Zhang Lili (张黎利) has spent years advocating for Zhu Ling’s cause, founding the Hualin Assistance Fund (华霖救助基金) and maintaining the “Zhu Ling, We Are Together” platform to raise awareness. His recent article accuses Tsinghua University of four major failures in handling Zhu Ling’s case. First, Tsinghua delayed Zhu Ling’s thallium poisoning diagnosis by providing misleading chemical records, causing irreversible harm. Second, evidence crucial to the poisoning case was lost under Tsinghua’s supervision, blocking justice. Third, the university abandoned Zhu Ling by ceasing medical payments and forcing her to withdraw, leaving her family in financial despair. Fourth, Tsinghua persistently evaded accountability despite evidence of poor lab management and missteps. Zhu Ling’s tragedy exposes systemic neglect and highlights the need for Tsinghua to take responsibility, offer an apology, and restore its integrity.】
Today marks the first anniversary of Zhu Ling’s (朱令) passing. She passed away a year ago on the winter solstice, the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Yesterday, I came across an article by Tsinghua University (清华大学) alumnus Zhang Lili (张黎利), titled “Tsinghua University’s Cold-Blooded Indifference and Shamelessness in the Zhu Ling Case—and How I Became a Long-Term Volunteer Helping Zhu Ling.” Zhang Lili was an undergraduate in Tsinghua’s Computer Science Department in 1992, entering Tsinghua the same year as Zhu Ling, and he happened to be a middle-school classmate of Sun Wei (孙维). He also knew Bei Zhicheng (贝志诚), who assisted Zhu Ling, and recalls that back then, Sun Wei’s boyfriend—someone from Tsinghua’s Computer Science Department named Xie—was in the same department as Zhang, living just a few dorm rooms away.
In 2013, Zhang first learned about Zhu Ling’s ordeal from an online forum called “Tianya.” Feeling deep sympathy, he launched a dedicated fund to support Zhu Ling and her family, naming it the “Hualin Assistance Fund (华霖救助基金).” Over many years, he offered quiet, ongoing help to Zhu Ling and her parents. He is also the sole administrator of the WeChat public account “Zhu Ling, We Are Together” (公号“朱令我们在一起”), a platform he has used for years to speak out on Zhu Ling’s behalf.
His recent article can be read as a formal accusation against Tsinghua. It enumerates four glaring failures in the university's handling of Zhu Ling’s case. Taken together, these failures paint a deeply disturbing portrait of the university’s cold-bloodedness and shamelessness—enough to incite profound anger.
1. Tsinghua Bears Partial Responsibility for Delayed Treatment of Zhu Ling’s Illness
On March 9, 1995, Zhu Ling was hospitalized for the second time. The chief of neurology, Li Shunwei (李舜伟), strongly suspected thallium poisoning and consulted with relevant specialists. However, Tsinghua provided a list of chemicals indicating that Zhu Ling had had no exposure to thallium, which led to a misdiagnosis. As a result, Zhu Ling missed the critical window for accurate diagnosis and treatment, leaving her with irreversible damage.
Of course, one might point a finger at the doctor as well: if suspicion was high, why trust Tsinghua’s list so unreservedly without further investigation? We don’t know whether Tsinghua’s claim that undergraduates have no access to thallium salts was a deliberate attempt to evade responsibility or simply the result of shoddy paperwork. But the fact remains that this documentation delayed Zhu Ling’s diagnosis and treatment, condemning her to thirty years of severe disability.
Furthermore, the poisoning itself took place inside a Tsinghua dorm, facilitated by poor management of thallium salts in the university laboratory—enabling the perpetrator to remove the substance and poison Zhu Ling multiple times. Tsinghua bears significant responsibility for the tragic outcome.
2. Tsinghua Bears Major Responsibility for the Loss of Evidence and the Resulting Investigation Dead End
On April 28, 1995, Zhu Ling was finally diagnosed with thallium poisoning, prompting suspicions of deliberate poisoning. Her parents reported it to Tsinghua’s security office, which then notified the students in Zhu Ling’s dorm room. Consequently, on April 29, the dorm was burglarized, and crucial evidence disappeared. In 1998, when the police asked to examine sealed items, more evidence was found missing. These two thefts destroyed key physical evidence, making it impossible to solve the case. Tsinghua’s Chemistry Department subsequently offered the Zhu family only 3,000 RMB in compensation. Given that Tsinghua’s poor management has led to the loss of the most crucial evidence, their conduct incites fury.
3. Tsinghua Showed Utter Indifference to Zhu Ling’s Treatment and Ongoing Assistance
As a Tsinghua student, Zhu Ling initially received healthcare coverage from the university. However, after one year of hospitalization (in 1996), Tsinghua stopped paying for her medical bills and repeatedly pressured her parents to process her withdrawal from the university.
Withdrawing from Tsinghua meant Zhu Ling would forfeit public medical coverage, which inflicted enormous emotional and financial strain on her parents. Despite their multiple letters appealing for the preservation of her student status, Tsinghua ignored them outright. Not until April 1997, shortly before Zhu Ling’s class graduated, did the university arrange a meeting with her family—though the administration was cold and made it explicit they would not preserve her enrollment, effectively cutting off her access to medical benefits. In November 1997, Beijing authorities instructed Tsinghua to provide a subsidy of 400,000 RMB for her care, but Tsinghua agreed to pay only 200,000. The remaining 200,000 came from the Beijing Youth Development Foundation. Tsinghua also insisted on a one-time settlement agreement, stressing that it was a “special courtesy” unrelated to any legal proceedings—clearly an attempt to absolve the university of responsibility.
Zhang Lili’s account aligns with that of Zhu Ling’s attorney, Zhang Jie (张捷), who noted that Tsinghua refused to cover her medical costs and, citing a two-year limit on medical leave, forced her to withdraw. After strong protests from Zhu Ling’s mother, Tsinghua’s final offer was a one-time payout of 200,000 RMB; if the family tried to pursue legal accountability, they would get nothing. Financially strapped, Zhu’s parents had no choice but to accept.
Even after all these appalling moves, Tsinghua still treated Zhu Ling’s family with heartless stinginess, forcing her out and never giving her a diploma. Because she never graduated, Zhu Ling legally remained classified as a “worker,” lacking public assistance benefits and healthcare coverage. Eventually, Zhang Jie placed Zhu Ling on his company’s payroll, granting her a modest monthly salary so she could qualify for medical insurance.
In Zhang Lili’s words, Tsinghua effectively cast a victim of on-campus poisoning out of the university’s realm of concern, showing no compassion whatsoever—even though the poisoning resulted in part from Tsinghua’s own inadequate supervision. In the end, only because higher authorities intervened did Tsinghua settle for half of the mandated 400,000 RMB, an arrangement that leaves one speechless with anger. Where is justice? Where is conscience? It’s infuriating to think of the inhuman leadership that made these decisions.
After that one-time payout of 200,000 RMB in 1998, Tsinghua severed contact with the Zhu family for fifteen years, from 1998 to 2012. They never called or wrote—a thorough abandonment of Zhu Ling’s case. It wasn’t until 2013, when Zhu Ling’s story resurfaced as a major social issue, that Tsinghua made some gestures. In September 2013, President Chen (陈某某) of Tsinghua visited Zhu Ling and her family, accompanied by two administrators and an alumnus, who gave 100,000 RMB in cash to Zhu Ling’s father on the spot. This was Tsinghua’s one and only attempt at reconciliation. However, after a Weibo article about this visit stirred concerns about potential PR fallout, Tsinghua ended all contact. Leadership allegedly declared internally, “From now on, Tsinghua couldn’t care less,” openly refusing any further engagement with Zhu Ling’s family.
4. The Tsinghua Administration Has Persistently Dodged Responsibility
In 1995, when interviewed by Beijing Television, Tsinghua refused to address questions regarding the presence of thallium on campus. In a separate interview with China Youth Daily, Deputy Director Xue of the Chemistry Department claimed it was impossible for Zhu Ling’s experiment to involve any thallium compound, insisting that undergraduates had no access to thallium. However, the Beijing Public Security Bureau later uncovered receipts and letters showing that Tsinghua had indeed purchased thallium salts. In 1996, Tsinghua finally admitted its Department of Engineering Physics had bought thallium.
Through the SCI (Science Citation Index) database, Zhang Lili discovered a 1996 paper published by Tsinghua University in the Dutch journal Analytica Chimica Acta (《分析化学学报》), whose first and third authors were Professors Tong (童某某) and Li (李某某) from Tsinghua. Considering the usual research and publishing timeline, the relevant laboratory experiments would have been conducted around 1994–1995—the period during which Zhu Ling was poisoned. At that same time, Sun Wei (孙维) was working in the lab of Professors Tong and Li, and she was the only undergraduate legally permitted to handle thallium.
Nevertheless, in 1997, Tsinghua’s General Affairs Office and one of its deputy party secretaries each stated that campus chemical management was excellent, that toxins were controlled according to regulations, and that Tsinghua had promptly reported everything—hence bore no responsibility. The administration has consistently refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing in managing its labs.
To this day, Tsinghua has never admitted any responsibility in Zhu Ling’s case.
Last year, after Zhu Ling passed away, Tsinghua published a notice referring to her as “a member of our 1992 class” (我校1992级校友), but is this the same student they treated with such cold indifference? And how can they call her an alumnus when they have never issued her a diploma? Tsinghua still owes Zhu Ling both an apology and a degree.
Of course, I realize that in speaking of “Tsinghua” here, I am referring to the leadership that made these decisions at the time, not the current administration. Who exactly made those heartless, conscience-defying decisions back then? According to Zhang Lili’s account, Zhu Ling’s parents began writing letters to Tsinghua’s president in 1997, pleading for the university to cover her medical costs. But the president’s secretary refused to acknowledge receipt. At that time, the Tsinghua president was Wang Dazhong (王大中), who served from 1994 to 2003. Zhu’s parents then sent a registered letter on September 3, 1997, to the Tsinghua party secretary but received no reply for nearly a year. When they did hear back, it was only because higher authorities demanded a settlement. From online information, the party secretary then was He Meiying (贺美英), who held the post from September 1995 to February 2002. However, Zhang Lili’s article also mentions that the person who actually met Zhu Ling’s parents was Zhang Zaixing (张再兴), then deputy party secretary.
We must distinguish between the official stance of Tsinghua and the sentiments of many Tsinghua students. I know many Tsinghua alumni who are deeply ashamed of how the university handled Zhu Ling’s case. Zhang Lili himself, following Tsinghua’s tradition of meticulous inquiry, painstakingly investigated what happened after Zhu Ling was poisoned. He also notes some shocking findings from more than a year of interviews. First, over the past two decades, there have been multiple student deaths at Tsinghua under abnormal circumstances, yet he could find no evidence of Tsinghua admitting any managerial responsibility. Indeed, there was at least one incident where Tsinghua reportedly sued the parents of a deceased student, accusing them of causing trouble. To borrow Zhang Lili’s own words, “There is more than one anguished spirit wandering Tsinghua’s campus.”
Second, the overwhelming majority of Tsinghua students, whether current or recent graduates know very little about these unnatural deaths. Many of Zhang’s classmates, like him, only learned about Zhu Ling’s tragedy more than ten years after leaving campus. During his investigation, he found many current or recent Tsinghua students were unfamiliar with the Zhu Ling case or other fatalities. It seems that minimizing such incidents in order to escape blame is part of the problem’s perpetuation.
If everything stated in Zhang Lili’s article is accurate, then Tsinghua truly went far beyond the pale. Is this really how the university treats its brightest young minds? Prospective students might want to think twice. Current Tsinghua leadership should feel compelled to right the wrongs committed by their predecessors. One hopes they will stand up, within Zhu Ling’s parents’ lifetime, to offer a belated apology, issue a graduation certificate, and, if possible, provide further financial support for her parents—to bring some measure of peace to Zhu Ling’s spirit.
Evading responsibility and covering up mistakes will only erode a school’s reputation. Having the courage to admit missteps and correct them is the only route worthy of a top university in China—and the only way to honor Tsinghua’s motto, Self-Discipline and Social Commitment (自强不息，厚德载物), so it no longer rings hollow. Recognizing shame and mustering the resolve to take corrective action is no small feat, but it is the only proper path forward. Only thus can we bring solace to Zhu Ling’s memory, restore hope among Tsinghua students, quell the outrage of all who have supported her, and remain faithful to what the name “Tsinghua” ought to represent.
This translation is an independent yet well-intentioned effort by the China Thought Express editorial team to bridge ideas between the Chinese and English-speaking worlds. The original text is available here:
https://enewstree.com/discuz/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=359290
Kindly attribute the translation if referenced.