Qincheng Prison
For important high-ranking prisoners, the doctors at Qincheng Prison do not have the final decision-making authority on how to treat the prisoners for their illness. It is often a political decision determined by the top brass of the communist regime. For example, in the autumn of 1969 during Cultural Revolution, under Kang Sheng's order, an important high-ranking prisoner, Shi Zhe (), the former personal secretary and personal Russian translator of Mao Zedong was jailed in Qincheng prison. He was scheduled to have an operation to remove a so-called cancer. However, doctors determined that there was no cancer at all, but Kang Sheng insisted on giving Shi Zhe () an operation, and the completely unnecessary operation was carried out to fulfill the political task.