AIDS and Authoritarianism By Roger Bate:

...the most populous country in the world is developing a significant problem with HIV/AIDS, one that's exacerbated by a host of other factors.

Last week at a meeting at the American Enterprise Institute, Harvard Researcher and AEI fellow, Nicholas Eberstadt, explained what's happening. What makes the Chinese AIDS problem so potentially dangerous is the attitude of the Chinese authorities themselves. The official number of Chinese cases was one million in 2002, but according to Dr. Eberstadt's estimations, based on internationally respected sources, it's closer to two million, and maybe higher.

Were China an open society, with a good track record in transparent sharing of health information, perhaps one would be more skeptical of Dr. Eberstadt's figures. But the reality is that China recently hid much important information about its SARS epidemic. The Chinese Government restricted foreign access to data about the extent of the epidemic, it fired officials that wanted to come clean, and it didn't institute sufficient monitoring of hospital cases and travellers with infections until it was too late. Thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths resulted.

Despite this, Dr. Yu Yunyao, Vice-President of the Party University of the Central Committee, told the AEI audience that the recent SARS episode showed the "success of [Chinese] leadership." And Professor Jiang Xiaochuan, also of the Party University backed the official Government figures on HIV/AIDS. He defended the Government's record and said that the Chinese officials have been concentrating on controlling "drug traffickers since much transmission [of HIV] occurs through them" in China.

So they'll just keep denying the problem until it goes away.