Li Zehua | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 李泽华 | |||||||||||
 Li in 2023 | |||||||||||
| Born | 1995 (age 29–30) Pingxiang, Jiangxi, China | ||||||||||
| Other names | Kcriss Li | ||||||||||
| Education | University of Rochester (MS) Communication University of China (BA) | ||||||||||
| Occupation(s) | Host, YouTuber | ||||||||||
| Years active | July 2013–April 2020 | ||||||||||
| Television | China Central Television | ||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Chinese | 李泽华 | ||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 李澤華 | ||||||||||
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Li Zehua (Chinese:李泽华, born 1995), commonly known asKcriss Li, is a Chinesecitizen journalist,YouTuber. Li was born inPingxiang, Jiangxi.[1] After graduating from theCommunication University of China, he joinedChina Central Television (CCTV) as a television presenter in 2016.[citation needed] He would later leave CCTV and become an independent journalist, documenting the early days of thecoronavirus pandemic inWuhan.
During theCOVID-19 pandemic in China, he resigned from CCTV and found a way to get intoWuhan, hoping to trace disappeared journalistChen Qiushi.[2] With the help of locals, he was able to get a car and find a place to stay.[3] In the following days, he used avlog to report on the pandemic in Wuhan.[2] He disappeared on 26 February 2020,[4] presumed detained by officers fromstate security.[5][6][7][8] Parts of his chase with the Wuhan authorities was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube.[9] Li was supposedly taken to a police station, where he had fingerprints and blood samples taken, before being taken to an "interrogation room".[9] He was told he was "suspected ofdisturbing public order", but was told there would be no penalty.[9] Some reports stated that no one had heard from Li since his 26 February 2020 disappearance,[10][11] while others stated that he returned to the hotel on 28 February.[12]
On 22 April 2020, Li posted a video on YouTube, Twitter, and Weibo, and uploaded the English subtitle to YouTube in the following days. According to Li, he was escorted on 26 February to the police station and was under investigation for disrupting public order. Additionally, police detained and quarantined him, citing his visits to sensitive epidemic areas. Li's quarantine was at first in Wuhan, and later moved to his hometown. Li stated that he had been treated well by the police during the detention, and that he had been released on 28 March.[13] According toThe Guardian, Li's neutral tone in the video was "very different from his previous videos".[14][15] ActivistOu Biaofeng stated the authorities may have told Li to make the brief statement.[16]
At the end of his April 22 post, he quoted theBook of Documents aphorism "the mind of man is restless, prone (to err); its affinity to what is right is small. Be discriminating, be uniform (in the pursuit of what is right), that you may sincerely hold fast the Mean." (人心惟危，道心惟微，惟精惟一，允執厥中。)[17] and gave his own interpretation in English:
The will of the people is unpredictable, the heart ofTao (the essence of cosmos) is fathomless.In order to make the will of the people consistent with the heart of Tao and reach the state ofUnity of people and cosmos, only the way is concentrate all energy on cultivation of the good nature of the heart, do not act in extreme, do not change faith, do not be fickle, uphold the doctrine of the golden mean ofConfucian orthodoxy.[13]
In January 2023, Li reappeared in the public light after nearly three years of silence to give an interview, during which he recounted the events leading to his arrest in February 2020 and restated his views on the lack of freedom for Chinese citizens and his disdain of the totalitarianism and tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party.[18]
In March 2023, Li was interviewed and stated that he had graduated from theUniversity of Rochester and is working at an artificial intelligence lab.[19]
