Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - March 21, 2005
Matt Pottinger, matt.pottinger@wsj.com
Combating AIDS isn't just a government obligation, "but also the common responsibility of society as a whole, including business," Vice Premier Wu Yi said Friday in a speech to government and corporate representatives gathered here for a summit on AIDS . The official Xinhua news agency quoted the vice minister of health, Wang Longde, saying, "We've understood deeply that in HIV/AIDS prevention, there are certain things that the government is not able to do. Drug addicts, sex workers and homosexuals are reluctant to talk to government workers. Therefore, we must encourage NGOs to participate."
Since she took control of China's health ministry in 2003 at the height of an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, Ms. Wu has presided over a notable shift in Beijing's AIDS policy. Following years of denial, the central government has taken steps to raise public awareness of the disease, including through televised visits with AIDS patients by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. The government also has begun offering free antiretroviral drugs to patients in some impoverished areas.
According to Chinese official statistics, about 840,000 people in the country were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2003. Experts inside China and abroad say the number of infected people is probably far higher. United Nations officials have said the epidemic could explode to 10 million cases by 2010 if the government doesn't take forceful action.
Ms. Wu's effort to enlist private-sector help is an indication that Beijing is more focused on halting the disease than governments in some neighboring countries, said Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and the president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, which co-sponsored the Beijing summit.
"India and Russia are still in denial," Mr. Holbrooke said. "But I have to say, on the basis of what I saw here, this government is no longer in denial."
Many activists and public-health experts have criticized Beijing's continuing reluctance to bring the same level of intensity to its anti-AIDS campaigning as it did to its belated, but highly effective, campaign to eradicate SARS in 2003. Many local officials continue to resist addressing the AIDS problem or allowing journalists to report about it. This is particularly common in locales where governments themselves are to blame for the spread of the disease, such as villages in central China where people were infected through unsanitary, government-backed blood-buying drives.
Chinese officials at all levels remain skittish about promoting the use of condoms to prevent infections. China's sex industry is thriving, yet condom use languishes at 10% to 20% among prostitutes and their clients, according to Tim Brown, a senior fellow at the East-West Center, a Honolulu think tank.
Mr. Holbrooke said he agrees that stubborn local officials present a challenge to enacting central-government policy. "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away," he said, quoting a popular Chinese idiom. "But at least the emperor has declared his policy," he added.
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