Securitizing HIV/AIDS: a game changer in state-societal relations in China?

Lo, Catherine Yuk-ping

It is argued that the existing NGO registration system, as previously mentioned, has brought about a fragmented NGO community in China. Apparently, governmentorganized non-government organization (GONGO) and registered NGOs working on HIV/AIDS are included in HIV/AIDS national policy implementation processes, whereas excluding unregistered grassroots NGOs that are perceived as illegal or "anti-government" organizations. Based on the nature of services that individual HIV/ AIDS-focused NGOs provided, service providers are preferred by the state, whereas NGOs serving as advocates of human rights and agencies providing legal services for HIV/AIDS-infected people would be subjected to prosecution and coercion. A HIV/AIDS specialist working in an international NGO in Beijing stated, "During a 2011 HIV/AIDS NGO meeting, the Chinese government clearly claimed that the authorities would like to work with NGOs/CBOs conducting service delivery, but not with those working on HIV/AIDS-related human rights or gender issues" (INGO-1). To further illustrate this point, the Chinese political leaders publicly praised a Guangxi-based NGO named AIDS Care China, recognizing the work the organization had been done in HIV/AIDS prevention, meanwhile stifling numbers of HIV/AIDS activists through imprisonment, house arrest, or assault. Dr. Wang Yanhai and Dr. Gao Yaojie were two of the prominent Chinese HIV/AIDS activists that fled to the United States in 2009 and 2010, respectively, due to the recurrent pressure and disturbance exerted by Chinese authorities owing to their advocacy work. In June 2015, a HIV/AIDS-related legal aid NGO, Beijing Yirenping, was raided, and two of its activists were detained. In this regard, the continuous inclusion/exclusion selection process would weaken unregistered or advocacy groups that conceived as threats to the legitimacy of the authoritarian regime [62] , while preserving NGOs that are willing to under control by the state apparatus and prepared to accept the regime's policy measures. For the sake of reaching a modus vivendi, these NGOs usually display self-limiting behaviors, avoiding actions that would be interpreted as threats to the regime [20] , such as having close relationship or cooperation with NGOs being "excluded" by the state apparatus.