Chinese virologist Li-Meng Yan, who once stunned the world with her claim that Covid-19 was engineered inside a Wuhan laboratory, now says she is living in fear that Beijing is using her own family to pull her out of hiding and lure her back to China. From an undisclosed location in the United States, she has told American media that the pressure campaign on her relatives is part of a strategy to silence her permanently—what she calls a “perfect crime”: bring her home, erase her claims, and bury the controversial narrative of an artificially manufactured virus.
Yan shot to global attention in 2020. At the time, she was working at the University of Hong Kong’s respected lab alongside her husband, virologist Ranawaka “Mahen” Perera, when she quickly concluded that Chinese authorities were concealing crucial information about the outbreak in Wuhan. According to Yan, the virus was not a natural spillover but the result of deliberate development and release—an allegation that contradicted the global scientific consensus and provoked outrage in Beijing. The claim sharply divided her household and isolated her from colleagues. Fearing for her safety, she fled China with assistance from conservative political operatives in the US who amplified her accusation and framed her as a whistleblower.
Yan later acknowledged that her plane ticket and US relocation were organised by a network linked to former White House strategist Steve Bannon and Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, both fierce critics of Beijing. They arranged introductions to top members of the Trump administration, enabling Yan’s claims to be politically weaponised during the pandemic. She now insists her intent was purely scientific, but the fallout has entangled her in a geopolitical struggle far larger than she ever anticipated.
Today, Yan says her parents and her husband are being used by Chinese authorities as pressure points. According to her account, Beijing’s security services are exploiting family relationships in order to coax her into returning voluntarily, rather than engaging in a high-profile abduction that would draw international backlash. She says she has not communicated with any of them for over five years as a matter of personal safety. Each new attempt by relatives to contact her only deepens her suspicion that they are being coerced.
Her husband tells a different story. After Yan vanished in 2020, Perera spent years trying to locate her, eventually taking an academic position at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021. He believes Yan was influenced—not threatened—into leaving China, pointing to online activists who presented her as a scientific authority while capitalising on her accusations for political gain. One of the key figures blamed is Wang Dinggang, a YouTube host known for anti-Beijing conspiracy narratives. Despite ideological alignment, US authorities later identified both Wang and Yan as victims in a transnational repression case allegedly orchestrated by China’s national police.
More episodes added to Yan’s fear of surveillance. Earlier in 2025, Google notified her that her accounts had been targeted in an attempted compromise “likely carried out by a state-sponsored attacker.” For Yan, the message reinforced her suspicion that returning to China would be fatal. She has since cut off all family communication and lives under protective security measures in the US, convinced that disappearing from public life is the only safeguard.
Perera, despite public disagreement with her claims, says his concern is not political. Speaking to The New York Times, he said he has made peace with the possibility that his marriage is over, but insists he cannot move forward without speaking to her once, hearing her voice, and confirming with certainty that she is safe and acting out of her own free will. He described Yan as “the person I love the most” and said the unanswered silence is unbearable.
Yan, on the other hand, maintains that speaking to her family—even once—could expose her location and compromise her safety. For her, the risk outweighs personal ties. The pandemic may have receded, but the battle over the origin of the coronavirus—and the personal costs attached to those who took positions during that period—continues to ripple through her life, with her family on one end and a fearful self-imposed exile on the other.
