Recently, I found myself reflecting again on a historic fraud case. It was the life of a man named Zhang Baosheng. On August 3, 2018, a once well-known eccentric from across China passed away in Beijing. He was 58 years old.

Even hearing the name Zhang Baosheng, today’s younger generations may not know him. But from the 1980s to the 1990s, he was truly a phenomenon who swept the era. Celebrity figures such as Li Ka-shing, Qiong Yao, and Lin Qingxia took photos with him one after another, trying to witness his “miraculous feats.” Even national leaders were paying attention to him.

Why did something like this happen? It began in 1978, when a senior official reported the concept of “qigong” to the national leadership. Renowned scientists such as Qian Xuesen supported it as well, believing that qigong and extraordinary abilities would bring about an “Eastern scientific revolution.” During that period, at least 50 research institutions across the country were involved, and the media covered qigong on the Spring Festival Gala stage for seven straight years.

Zhang Baosheng was originally nothing more than a lead-mining worker in Benxi, Liaoning Province. However, he started claiming that he could read characters with his ears and that he could retrieve objects from far away. The Benxi City Association for Science and Technology believed him and recommended his performance to the leadership in Beijing. After that, Zhang Baosheng was transferred to a secret research institution, where he worked on studies such as “perception through walls.”

He soon became widely famous. Dedicated housing, a dedicated car, police escorts, and 13 telephones. In 1994, even a drama based on his life was produced. Li Guyi sang the theme song, and it spread nationwide. During this time, Zhang Baosheng was truly called a “master of national treasure level.”

But on August 11, 1995, everything changed. During his final performance at Beijing Television Station, the tools he had hidden in advance became sticky with heat, causing the performance to fail. After that, media reports revealed that Zhang Baosheng’s “extraordinary abilities” were a fraud. He slipped away from the stage and disappeared from public view.

Afterward, Zhang Baosheng lived quietly in a heavily guarded residential area on Yuanmingyuan West Road in Beijing. His followers believed that the state was secretly protecting him. Meanwhile, residents of the neighborhood laughed at him as nothing more than a con artist.

What’s interesting is that after Zhang Baosheng’s death, the people and institutions who had placed him on a pedestal were pretending not to know. They neither admitted it nor denied it—as if he had never existed.

This incident fully exposed just how lacking in scientific literacy the China society of that time really was. Politicians, scholars, the media, and celebrities joined forces and ended up turning a deeply flawed con artist into a truly powerful leader. Perhaps Zhang Baosheng’s life symbolizes the collective blindness of that era.