Care not control for needy, says scholar
The central government is losing popular support by alienating millions of needy people, treating them as threats to social stability instead of helping them with care and support, says a leading Aids campaigner who has been forced into exile.
Under its so-called innovative social management concept, the government views people such as HIV/Aids sufferers, former drug addicts and inmates, petitioners and mentally ill people as potential sources of instability who should be police targets, Wan Yanhai, the head of the Beijing-based Aids advocacy group Aizhixing, said at a talk at Chinese University of Hong Kong this week.
Based on official statistics, Wan estimated there are at least 10 million people - about 1 per cent of the mainland population - in that category.
Amid online calls for ordinary Chinese to emulate the Arab world's jasmine revolution this year, President Hu Jintao urged top officials in February to 'improve social management capabilities' and to solve problems 'which might harm social harmony and stability'.
In reality, this often translates into tightened social control as well as harassment of individuals, Wan said, citing the example of more than 80,000 people in Shenzhen who were seen as potential threats to stability - including the unemployed, mentally ill, drug addicts and sex workers - and evicted from the city ahead of the World University Games in August.
A prominent Aids activist, Wan was constantly under surveillance and subject to police harassment for years before he fled to the United States last year. Activities organised by his group were often banned and he was detained many times for his advocacy work. Some of the Aids victims his group helped were also constantly watched by the police.
'Such a surveillance system creates many enemies ... putting people under surveillance, labelling them as dangerous elements is an insult to their dignity,' said Wan, currently a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He said labelling people as potential 'dangerous elements' may be a selffulfilling prophecy since the humiliating treatment they received often drove them to acts of desperation.
The government must change its 'class struggle' mentality and allow social workers, psychiatrists and non-government organisations to help solve social problems, he said. 'When social problems become political problems, its instinctive reaction is to mobilise the police and the army,' he said. 'If the [party] can't abandon this mentality it will be very difficult for it to handle challenges it faces in society's development.'
