What a difference a year makes. In August of 2002, Dr Wan Yanhai, founder of China's vanguard Aids advocacy group, Aizhi Action Project, was in prison on dubious charges of leaking state secrets. Now, the controversial Aids activist is in the more distinguished position of being a World Fellow at Yale University's Centre for Globalisation, in honour of his work fighting Aids in China.
In March 1994, Dr Wan helped establish the Aizhi Action Project in Beijing as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) undertaking HIV/Aids-related education, service, research and advocacy. Aizhi initially focused on Aids prevention, safe sex education and advocacy for gays, lesbians and bisexuals in China.
Renamed Aizhixing Health Education Institute, the group has extended its work to financial assistance, legal aid and raising Aids awareness among drifting migrants, students, drug users, prostitutes, gays and lesbians.
Aizhixing often faced criticism from the public and the government because of its work with China's most marginalised groups. 'In general, our relationship with the government in past years was intense and shaky,' Dr Wan said.
But despite rocky relations with officials, the attention that Aizhixing and other NGOs have drawn to the spread of HIV/Aids is starting to pay off. Recently, significant shifts in government attitudes have given Aids activists hope that China can avoid what the United Nations last year ominously labelled 'China's Titanic Peril': the spread of HIV/Aids on a scale tantamount to many African nations.
The UN Aids Programme estimated that by 2010, China could have as many as 20 million Aids sufferers. However, in what Dr Wan called 'a step in the right direction', the central government has begun to take the threat of Aids more seriously by sponsoring several Aids conferences last month attended by world leaders and dignitaries, including former United States president Bill Clinton.