China's Hidden HIV Epidemic

HIV, the "capitalism-loving disease"

Xinjiang is an autonomous province that holds a wealth of national resources and acts as a buffer zone between China and other Central Asian states. It’s bordered on its south by Tibet, another one of China’s three “autonomous” territories; like Tibet, Xinjiang sustains a strong separatist movementâ€"mainly comprised of an ethnic Turkic, Sunni populationâ€"that claims a 4,000 year history with the land. Also like Tibet, the area has recently experienced harsh military crackdowns by the Chinese government, a comprehensive strategy of Han “re-population” and intense discrimination of its ethnic minorities. The majority of Xinjiang’s non-Han cultural community is known ethnically as Uyghur and makes up nearly 45% of the region’s population.

Xinjiang and its Uyghur people also have a longer history with HIV/AIDS than the rest of the country. In fact, until the early 2000s, reports show that China pointedly referred to the epidemic in the region as “a Uyghur disease,” an “evil from abroad”, and “ÀizÄ«bìng” (艾滋病)â€"a pun on  “ÀizÄ«bìng” (爱资病), which means a “capitalism-loving disease”â€"in its national media.

The Chinese Ministry of Health was also known to say that, thanks to the “superior [Han] immune system” and their “Neo-Confucian values,” most Chinese would not be affected by the disease. “The government inaction surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Uyghur community certainly reflected the low status of the Uyghur people in the eyes of the government,” says Fay.

Dr. Anna Hayes, a leading researcher on the region’s HIV and heroin epidemics, reiterates Fay’s warning that accurate, cohesive information about China’s HIV/AIDS epidemic in Xinjiang is hard to find. “The levels of data in these reports are not enough,” Hayes tells Hopes&Fears. “You want statistics that drill down to county levels and it just isn’t available. Numbers, modes of transmission, comparing trends across years, it’s all missing.” Hayes pointedly notes a time period of about four years where China’s “official” numbers on the HIV/AIDS epidemic didn’t change by a single caseâ€"a highly suspect claim.

Xinjiang (新疆‎‎ in Mandarin, شىنجاڭ in Uyghur) means “New Frontier. Annexed originally in 1884 by the Manchu Empire, the province went through two successful uprisings to become an independent state (what local ethnic populations still call “East Turkestan) before the Chinese government re-took a firm, military hold of it in 1949.