The New York Times - December 18, 1986
Edward A. Gargan

Otherwise, officials say, they will not be permitted to enter the country.

The Government has also started giving blood tests for AIDS antibodies to foreign students already in residence, the Ministry of Health announced. The presence of such antibodies indicates exposure to the AIDS virus and probable continuing infection with it, but not whether a person has the fatal disease or will develop it.

There are about 4,000 foreign students in China. Thousands of foreigners work as diplomats, businessmen and journalists in China, but the Ministry of Health said that as of now there were no plans to test them. He also said tourists would not be required to undergo the tests.

Foreign students and faculty in Xian, the capital of Shanxi province, have been asked to submit to blood tests beginning today, according to foreigners there. Foreign students in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, have also been asked to take the tests.

Ministry of Health officials also said that tests were being administered in Beijing and Canton, but foreign students in those cities said they were unaware of the testing.

At Jiaotong University in Xian, all foreign students and teachers received notices earlier this week under university letterhead requesting that they appear at the university hospital for a blood test today.

The notice read in part, "It is a new test given to all foreigners residing in China."

Karen Thornton, a Canadian whose husband teaches English at the university, described the notice as "outright discrimination against foreigners" and said she had not complied. "It's racism," she said. "They aren't testing Chinese students."

Qi Xiaoqiu, an official with the AIDS prevention group in the Ministry of Health, insisted that only foreign students, and not foreign teachers, were to be tested. He also denied that the AIDS testing for residents was compulsory.

But Mr. Qi said that "if the school demands that the student take the test, they must take the test." Students who refuse, he said, will not be admitted.

Mr. Qi said China was increasingly concerned about the possibility that AIDS would come to China because of the rapid spread of the disease in other countries.

"Many countries in the world have found this disease," Mr. Qi said. "In order to prevent this in China, we have to adopt these measures because more and more foreigners are coming to China. We regard this as a dangerous infectious disease."

From January, as new students are granted admission to Chinese universities, they must obtain medical certificates from their home countries attesting to the fact that they are not infected with the AIDS virus. If students arrive in China without the certificates, Mr. Qi said, they would be administered blood tests on arrival. Anyone who tests positive would be expelled from the country.

There have been only five cases of AIDS in China, according to the Ministry of Health. Last fall, a foreigner died of the disease in a Beijing hospital and four Chinese contracted the illness after what officials describe as transfusions of contaminated blood that had been acquired outside of China. China has since stopped importing blood supplies.

Ms. Thornton said that all foreigners living in Xian, including those at other academic institutions, had been notified that they should be tested.

"Students at the Foreign Languages Institute refused to take the test," she said. "A few people returned the notice with a statement reading, 'We respectfully decline.' There were some people who formally refused to take the test at the foreign affairs office of the university."

"I just didn't go to the hospital," Ms. Thornton said. "The Chinese don't understand the principle of privacy."

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