A Chinese citizen journalist serving a four-year sentence after reporting on the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic in the city of Wuhan is in ill-health after staging a long-running hunger strike, according to a lawyer who spoke with her family.

Zhang Zhan was hospitalised on July 31 and now weighs less than 40 kilos, according to a message sent by her mother to a group on Chinese social media.

Authorities notified the family she was in poor health and told them to come to the prison, said Peng Yonghe, a lawyer who spoke with Ms Zhang’s mother.

Her parents and brother went to Shanghai on August 2, but were only allowed to speak with her over the phone.

“We just hope that she can get out of jail, because her hunger strike is really worrying,” said Peng.

Hospitals in Chinese prisons are generally poorly equipped, said Jane Wang, an activist with Humanitarian China, a US-based group founded by Chinese dissidents. Ms Wang helped share Ms Zhang mother’s message more widely.

“It’s not a proper medical facility,” said Ms Wang.

Ms Zhang’s mother could not be reached for comment.

A Shanghai court sentenced Ms Zhang last December over accusations of “picking fights and provoking trouble”, a vaguely defined charge often used in political cases.

She went on hunger strike early on, then began taking some food after her health declined, Ms Wang said, citing one of Ms Zhang’s lawyers.

Calls to the office at Shanghai’s Prison Administration went unanswered yesterday.

Authorities detained Ms Zhang in May last year as China stepped up censorship to control the narrative about the pandemic, which was first detected in Wuhan.

The government has faced accusations that it covered up early missteps and delayed the release of critical information that would have helped slow the spread of the virus.

Ms Zhang had travelled to Wuhan shortly after the city was placed under strict lockdown in February last year, with millions of residents forbidden to leave.

She uploaded dozens of short, shaky mobile phone videos to YouTube, showing deserted streets and other signs of life under lockdown.

One documented her visit to a police station, where Dr Li Wenliang had been reprimanded for spreading word about the outbreak, where she tried to ask about his case.

Another shows a security guard repeatedly batting away her phone and threatening her as she filmed a dispute.

Separately yesterday, China carried out assault drills near Taiwan, with warships and fighter jets exercising off the south-west and south-east of the island in what the country’s armed forces said was a response to “external interference” and “provocations”.

Taiwan, which Beijing claims as Chinese territory, has complained of repeated People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills in its vicinity in the past two years, part of a pressure campaign to force the island to accept China’s sovereignty.

A senior official familiar with Taiwan’s security planning said China’s air force had carried out a “capturing air supremacy” drill using advanced J-16 fighters.

Taiwan believes China is trying to gather electronic signals from US and Japanese aircraft so they can “paralyse reinforcing aircraft including F-35s in a war”, the source said, referring to the US-operated stealth fighter.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said 11 Chinese aircraft entered its air defence zone, including two nuclear-capable H-6K bombers and six J-16 fighters, and that it had scrambled jets to warn China’s planes away.

While the Chinese statement gave no exact location for the drills, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said aircraft flew in an area between mainland Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands at the top part of the South China Sea.

The PLA said that recently, the US and Taiwan have “repeatedly colluded in provocation and sent serious wrong signals, severely infringing China’s sovereignty and severely undermining peace
and stability in the Taiwan Strait”.