Yeah, yeah.. I know. It is from Newsweek magazine. But you can find it with a quick internet search on multiple news sites.

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Newsweek
Apr 23, 2026
By Didi Kirsten Tatlow

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The star of China's booming artificial intelligence defense sector had been working on Taiwan invasion scenarios—until he died in an unexplained car crash in the early hours of the morning in Beijing, aged just 38.

Many questions remain over the July 1, 2023 death of Feng Yanghe, a professor at the National University of Defense Technology, who had won national competitions with his pioneering "War Skull" platform.

Such as, why did an obituary in the state-run science news website, Sciencenet.cn, say he was "sacrificed"? Why was the brilliant scientist from Gansu province buried in a special cemetery in Beijing for the Communist Party elite, state heroes, and revolutionary martyrs?

The phenomenon mirrors the wave of disappearances or deaths among American scientists that is now being investigated by Washington. In the U.S, there have been 11 cases, in China at least nine.

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More Untimely Deaths

Other deaths attributed to car accidents have included Zhang Xiaoxin, 62, in December 2024, a space expert at the National Satellite Meteorological Centre who specialised in weather monitoring and early warning systems, according to the South China Morning Post.

"Zhang won a top award given by the Chinese military for science and tech progress, although little information is available about his research project," the newspaper reported.

In 2018, Chen Shuming, 57, a Chinese military scientist and microelectronics expert at the National University of Defense Technology as "leader of China's high-end weapon chip research and development team," died in a car accident, according to Electronic Engineering Times China.

The celebrated chemist Zhou Guangyuan died aged 51, in December 2023, with no cause of death given. In an obituary Sciencenet.cn said that after years of study Zhou "had developed a more profound sense of doing what the country needs."

The hypersonics field has also lost experts such as Fang Daining, 68, apparently after an unexpected medical episode in South Africa in February this year.

Another hypersonics researcher, Yan Hong, 56, who had worked at Wright State University in Ohio before returning to China to join the U.S.-sanctioned Northwestern Polytechnical University, died in March, reportedly following an illness, the South China Morning Post reported.

Last year Zhang Daibing, 47, one of China's top drone experts and the former deputy director of the National University of Defense Technology's Unmanned Systems Research Institute as well as the founder of Yunzhihang Technology company, died in Changsha in Hunan province, according to Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao newspaper. No cause of death was given.

Liu Donghao, 51, a prominent data scientist, died in 2024 after an unspecified accident. Liu was the founder of Guizhou Big Data Protection Engineering Security Research and a pioneer in the field of China's data security management systems, the Global Times reported.

Li Minyong, 49, an internationally renowed biomedical chemist who was a Ministry of Education "talent plan" awardee and a member of the non-Communist Zhigong Party that is part of the CCP's United Front, died in Guangzhou in November 2025 after a sudden illness, according to his obituary. He had developed "innovative drugs guided by visualization and light-controlled regulation," the obituary said.

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