ABSTRACT
In the two decades since the first AIDS case was confirmed in China (1985), public perception of the disease has undergone a sea-change. In 1985, the disease was viewed as a foreign disease associated with illicit behavior, to be controlled by testing all foreigners who entered the country. In 2008, China has an internationally lauded AIDS prevention and treatment policy that endorses many best practices and is promoted by the senior leadership. The changing attitude towards AIDS parallels shifts in Chinese society and politics in the three decades since the end of China’s decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1976. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese were a traumatized, suspicious, fearful, and inward-looking society, short on humanism after years of de-sensitization to brutality. By the beginning of the new millennium, China was an emerging global power, a country that is both partner and participant in globalization. A new and large generation of youths, coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s and largely spared the trauma of the previous generation, make up a newly emerging educated middle class increasingly exposed to new ideas and values from outside, connected by the Internet and global media, with greater respect for the value of life and tolerance for diversity. Because the highest risk groups for AIDS infection are often the most highly stigmatized groups in society, the acknowledgement and increasing acceptance of these groups and their behaviors has opened the door for a more sympathetic attitude towards HIV/AIDS and a coordinated public policy response based on best international practices. These changes have been brought about by a combination of events, both internal and external. Domestic events and resulting internal pressures on government to be accountable and to act have been the major impetus. Domestic advocacy from within government and from NGO activists and academic scholars (public intellectuals) have also spurred government action. But external pressure from the international community, including transnational civil society actors, has also been an important factor in pushing for greater attention to AIDS in China. As with many other issues, the international perception of denial, inaction, human rights abuses, and cover up have threatened China’s self-image and spurred internal debate and response, often positive. Combined with a realization that
economic growth and participation in the fruits of globalization depend on good global citizenship, these forces have propelled an uncustomary accountability on the AIDS issue. These internal and external forces have worked synergistically over two decades to build the current consensus for action, albeit belatedly. This chapter highlights key events in China’s AIDS epidemic and response that helped push public attitudes towards a more sympathetic, moral, and humanitarian stance towards victims of the epidemic.
