Fang Daining, one of the most important scientists in China’s hypersonic weapons program, died on Feb. 27, 2026, but CCP authorities kept the news secret for weeks. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post first reported his death on March 18, citing images of an obituary notice that had begun circulating on Chinese social media around March 16.
Early online discussions indicated that Fang had fallen ill suddenly while on a business trip to South Africa. Several Chinese social media users said they had been told not to photograph the obituary notice. The South China Morning Post said it was unable to independently verify these claims.
The obituary images appeared to show a notice posted on a whiteboard at the Beijing Institute of Technology’s Institute of Advanced Structure Technology, a military-linked research body that Fang himself helped establish in 2015.
The notice identified Fang as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s most prestigious state scientific body; a specialist in materials science and structural mechanics; a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, one of China’s top defense research universities; and the honorary director and chief scientist of the Institute of Advanced Structure Technology. He died of illness on Feb. 27, 2026, at the age of 68, according to the obituary.
Fang’s role in China’s hypersonic weapons program
The obituary detailed Fang Daining’s contributions to military-relevant research: expanding the theory of deformation and fracture in ferroelectric and ferromagnetic materials, establishing constitutive models linking microscale electric domain distributions to macroscale behavior, and developing computational and design methods for advanced materials and structures under combined electromagnetic, thermal, and mechanical fields at multiple scales.
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Fang had led the development of multiple categories of ultra-high-temperature testing instruments. These instruments, according to the obituary, solved critical testing challenges involving the coupling of thermal, mechanical, and oxidative forces under extreme conditions for military equipment materials and structures. Beijing Institute of Technology’s own website described them as having supported the development of spacecraft re-entry capsules and other classified military vehicles, terminology that defense analysts associate with China’s hypersonic weapons program.
The day after the South China Morning Post published its report, World Scientific Publishing, the largest international academic publisher in the Asia-Pacific region, issued an English-language obituary on March 19 calling Fang a towering figure in applied mechanics. The notice did not mention the date or cause of death.
Fang’s portfolio of work makes clear his significance to the CCP’s military-industrial apparatus. According to his Wikipedia entry, Fang was born on April 3, 1958, in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, with ancestral roots in Ningbo, Zhejiang. He held membership in both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and, as a foreign associate, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He served as a professor at Peking University’s College of Engineering and as a vice president of Beijing Institute of Technology.
In May 2023, the Chinese media platform NetEase published an article highlighting research by Fang’s team. The piece described a breakthrough in multifunctional composite materials capable of providing both ballistic protection and radar-absorbing stealth properties for armored vehicles, a combination long considered difficult to achieve with a single material.
The air defense systems produced by CCP-affiliated weapons scientists, however, have already been put to the test and found wanting in Iran and Venezuela.
Beijing broke protocol and deleted online mourning
CCP authorities did not issue the standard public announcement that typically accompanies the death of a Chinese Academy of Sciences member. Early discussions about Fang Daining’s death on Chinese social media were rapidly deleted. The regime’s posture was evasive from the start.
A Vision Times reporter confirmed that Fang’s name and biography still appear on the Chinese Academy of Sciences website under its “Academician Information” section.
On March 9, a post on Baidu Zhidao, one of China’s largest question-and-answer platforms, claimed that Fang was alive and well, calling reports of his death false.
On March 16, a user on the Chinese forum Wangda responded to a thread about Fang: “His workplace (the Beijing Institute of Technology’s Institute of Advanced Structure Technology) has already posted an obituary. He died of illness on February 27. Probably because of that previous incident, they didn’t announce it…”
That “previous incident” was a scandal that became one of the most widely discussed events on the Chinese internet in 2022.
The 2022 video scandal that ended his public career
On Oct. 9, 2022, a video from an online Chinese academic seminar titled “Promoting the Development of Mechanics” went viral. The seminar featured a multi-participant video conference, with Fang Daining appearing in one of the on-screen windows labeled “BIT, Fang Daining.”
As another scholar posed a question to participants about what qualities young researchers should develop beyond their technical skills, a young woman in a blue top suddenly entered Fang’s video frame. She embraced him and kissed him on the cheek twice before apparently realizing the camera was live. Visible shock registered on the faces of other participants in adjacent video windows.
The video spread rapidly across the Chinese internet.
Chinese media outlet Toutiao reported that during the livestreamed mechanics conference, a senior figure was kissed twice by a young woman on camera. After the man alerted her that the online meeting was in progress, she stepped back out of the camera’s field of view. He continued participating as if nothing had happened.
NetEase News reported that the conference was an in-person event, with several university professors from prominent institutions joining remotely. During another speaker’s remarks, the young woman in blue appeared in Fang’s camera feed, embraced his face, and kissed him. The webcam captured everything for the full audience.
Beijing Institute of Technology rushed out a response
In the early morning hours of Oct. 10, 2022, at 1:39 a.m., Beijing Institute of Technology rushed out a statement acknowledging that a video involving Professor Fang Daining’s participation in an online academic conference had appeared on internet platforms and drawn public attention. The university said it had immediately launched an investigation.
The incident set off a firestorm. Chinese internet users reacted with a mix of derision and anger. Some questioned the point of an investigation when the video evidence was so clear. Others speculated about the transactional nature of the relationship. One commenter wrote that it was impossible for no exchange of benefits to be involved, and that this was certainly not an isolated case. Another summed up the prevailing sentiment: “This is just a snapshot. How widespread is this kind of thing in academic circles? It’s worth thinking about.”
By Oct. 10, Chinese netizens had identified the woman in blue as a postdoctoral researcher at Beijing Institute of Technology’s Institute of Advanced Structure Research. Reports circulated that she had graduated with a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from Beijing University of Technology in July 2018. She was said to be in her thirties and married. These details were never officially confirmed.
Fang lost his positions but kept his research role
On Dec. 7, 2022, Beijing Institute of Technology announced its disciplinary findings. Fang Daining was stripped of his position as chairman of the university’s Academic Committee and barred from supervising graduate students.
The university’s statement acknowledged that the video incident occurred in early July 2022, during Fang’s online participation in an academic conference. The statement characterized Fang’s conduct as a behavioral violation that caused serious negative public impact. It also “clarified” that the woman in the video was an employee of a Beijing-based company, not the university postdoctoral researcher identified online.
No explanation was offered for why a private company employee happened to be present in the room during Fang’s video conference session.
On the same day, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Academic Division issued its own notice. Fang was suspended from attending academician meetings and other academic activities organized by the Division. He lost his rights to nominate and vote for new academicians and foreign academicians, and to stand for or be elected to the Division’s standing leadership bodies.
Why the CCP covered up Fang Daining’s death
Despite the 2022 scandal’s explosive reach, Fang Daining continued his research work on military-relevant materials science and hypersonic weapons technology. He simply stopped making public appearances. That prior disgrace may help explain why the CCP chose to suppress the announcement of his death rather than honor him with the standard public mourning reserved for deceased Chinese Academy of Sciences members. For a regime that had already been embarrassed once by Fang’s personal conduct, a second round of public attention on the man and his military work was apparently something to avoid.