Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08CHENGDU2
2008-01-03 09:02:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Chengdu
Cable title:
HENAN AIDS CAMPAIGNER GAO YAOJIE'S MEMOIRS SET FOR EARLY
how-toVZCZCXRO3725 RR RUEHGH RUEHVC DE RUEHCN #0002/01 0030902 ZNY CCCCC ZZH R 030902Z JAN 08 FM AMCONSUL CHENGDU TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2711 INFO RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE RUEHCHI/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI 0064 RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 3282
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000002
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE FOR S/S/GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR
STATE FOR EAP/CM AND DRL
STATE PASS NIH/FOGARTY INTERNATIONAL CENTER
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL FOR CHRISTINA COLLINS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/3/2033
TAGS: PHUM KHIV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: HENAN AIDS CAMPAIGNER GAO YAOJIE'S MEMOIRS SET FOR EARLY
2008 RELEASE
CHENGDU 00000002 001.2 OF 003
CLASSIFIED BY: John Hill, Acting Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General, Chengdu, China.
REASON: 1.4 (d)
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000002
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE FOR S/S/GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR
STATE FOR EAP/CM AND DRL
STATE PASS NIH/FOGARTY INTERNATIONAL CENTER
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL FOR CHRISTINA COLLINS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/3/2033
TAGS: PHUM KHIV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: HENAN AIDS CAMPAIGNER GAO YAOJIE'S MEMOIRS SET FOR EARLY
2008 RELEASE
CHENGDU 00000002 001.2 OF 003
CLASSIFIED BY: John Hill, Acting Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General, Chengdu, China.
REASON: 1.4 (d)
1. (C) Summary: Dr. Gao Yaojie's youngest sister discussed
her two week stay with her sister in Zhengzhou, Henan Province.
Gao is closely monitored and her family members regularly
pressured. Gao's next two books -- on AIDS in Henan and her
memoirs -- may tempt the authorities to deal more harshly with
the 81 year old AIDS awareness campaigner after they are
published in Hong Kong as early as March 2008. End summary.
-------------- --------------
--------------
Dr. Gao in Zhengzhou: Finished Writing Books While Under Watch
-------------- --------------
--------------
2. (C) Dr. Gao's youngest sister, a US LPR who spends several
months a year in Chengdu, discussed Dr. Gao Yaojie's situation,
the pressure on her family member, and precautions being taken
to ensure the publication of Dr. Gao's books should she be
arrested. Dr. Gao spent the last months of 2007 finishing two
new books.
-- "The AIDS Wound" [Azi zhi shang] now in the second round of
galley proofs, will be published in 2008 by Mingbao in Hong Kong
which has purchased the Chinese traditional character rights.
-- Dr. Gao has just finished her memoirs, tentatively entitled
"Eighty Years Are Not A Dream" [Rensheng Baxun Bushi Meng] .
-- The approaches to Dr. Gao's building is monitored by five
video cameras. The guard is not always there. Two BBC
journalists visited her in late November. Family members are
allowed to visit Dr. Gao. During her early 2007 house arrest,
family visits were not allowed.
-- Dr. Gao does not type so two AIDS orphans she has supported
for the past decade came on weekends to type her manuscript. One
of them has just started university in Henan. She told them not
to tell anyone what is in her manuscript. She has told everyone
that her books will not be ready for two years so the police
will not try to seize the manuscript. Her sister says that Dr.
Gao feels that there are only a very few people she can trust.
Dr. Gao told her sister in late December that her memoirs are
complete and have been sent to the publisher (Mingbao) in Hong
Kong. She said that both books might be published in Hong Kong
in Chinese as early as March 2008.
--------------
A Glimpse at Dr. Gao's Memoirs
--------------
3. (C) Dr. Gao's sister showed Congenoff a nearly complete
copy of Dr. Gao's memoirs along with family photographs and
documents. Dr. Gao begins with the background of her family in
their ancestral home in Shandong Province, which they had to
leave in 1937 because of the war. Dr. Gao writes of her
experiences as a wartime college student who moved to southwest
China along with the Nationalist government as did many students
at the time. During the Cultural Revolution Dr. Gao was
sentenced to labor reform for a year and her son for two years.
Like many other Chinese, Dr. Gao received a letter in the early
1980s absolving her of the supposed Cultural Revolution era
crimes.
4. (C) The heart of Dr. Gao's memoirs begin after her
retirement from her career as a gynecologist in Zhengzhou, the
capital of Henan. She began speaking out and agitating against
the many quack doctors and counterfeit medicines in Henan during
the early 1980s. While the Henan authorities supported her in
these early efforts, they applied strong pressure against her
when she spoke out early against the blood disaster of
contaminated blood spread by government run blood banks that
pooled blood from donors into tanks and then returned the blood
CHENGDU 00000002 002.2 OF 003
to the donors after plasma had been extracted. For many years
she has been involved not only in helping people with HIV/AIDS
but also their families and orphans. At times lionized by the
Chinese media as a heroine and sometimes placed under house
arrest or harassed through pressure placed on her family
members, she found her life as an AIDS awareness campaigner
often a nightmare but kept pressing on.
5. (C) The Henan Province blood disaster remains very
sensitive. Both the provincial authorities and the central
government were involved in blood banking and the subsequent
cover-up. Over the past few years Dr. Gao has continued to
point to problems with the blood supply in Henan Province. She
tracks cases of people who contracted HIV as a result of blood
transfusions and continues to speak out and press the
authorities about these cases.
6. (C) Dr. Gao told her sister that for the last five years
people getting blood transfusions in Henan had to sign a waiver
that they understand that the blood they are getting might be
contaminated with HIV or other disease agents. [Note: A Chengdu
contact of the Consulate said that a friend had to sign a
similar waiver in Chengdu in early 2007 before getting a blood
transfusion. A Chinese lawyer asked about this told Congenoff
that under Chinese civil law a contract or waiver cannot
diminish the responsibility of the hospital but most Chinese
people don't know this. End note]
--------------
Scenes From Dr. Gao's Memoirs
--------------
7. (C) Some of these stories from Dr. Gao via her sister will
be in Dr. Gao's memoirs.
--- Dr. Gao told her sister that fifth ranking Politburo member
Li Changchun has pressured the Henan leadership to either get
Dr. Gao out of the country, put her under house arrest, or under
(police?) arrest, with a preference for the second option.
--Dr. Gao said that even after Hu Jintao ordered that Dr. Gao be
allowed to go to the U.S. to receive the leadership award from
Vital Voices, Henan authorities continued to put pressure on Dr.
Gao's son to persuade Dr. Gao not to go.
-- When Dr. Gao was to fly to the U.S., her family did not want
to drive her, fearing that an accident would be arranged. The
head of the local health department drove her to the airport.
-- At the airport, three senior Henan officials appeared to
wish her a good trip. "Here is what we want you to say in
America", they said. She threw down the papers at their feet
and got on the aircraft.
-- Dr.Gao told her sister that young public security officers
guarding her door in February were very confused that the top
party leadership of Henan brought her flowers and gifts while
she was under house arrest. "What kind of person is this?," they
asked.
-- During her early 2007 house arrest, harassment of her family
members, especially of her son was much worse that harassment of
Dr. Gao herself. Her daughter, son, and daughter-in-law were
followed by two public security cars each to and from work.
Public Security Officers appeared every day where her son, an
auto mechanic works. They would say. "We came to see how you
are" and leave.
--------------
Dr. Gao's Health
--------------
CHENGDU 00000002 003.2 OF 003
8. (C) Although Dr. Gao had good results from her Spring
health checkup while visiting in New York earlier this year, at
81 she has several problems including arthritis and a cataract
in her right eye. Now that her manuscripts are with the
publisher, Dr. Gao plans to go to Hong Kong to have eye surgery
in March after collecting some clothing for AIDS orphans. Dr.
Gao fears that if she had surgery in China, some mishap might be
arranged. Her books may be published while she is in Hong Kong.
-------------- --------------
--------------
Comment: Dr. Gao Combats Both Disease and Political Pathologies
-------------- --------------
--------------
9. (C) The situation of people with HIV/AIDS in China has
improved considerably over the past several years with Chinese
government policy changes, including providing retrovirals to
some people with HIV. Dr. Gao Yaojie has continued to document
many individual cases of blood contamination in Henan province
that appear to illustrate a reckless disregard for the welfare
of Chinese citizens. For Dr. Gao, HIV/AIDS is not a matter of
how many hundreds of thousands or millions of people have
HIV/AIDS in China, but of many individual cases, each one of
them important. For Dr. Gao, the basic pathology is not
biological but the powerlessness of people to protect themselves
against the arbitrary power of local officialdom.
10. (U) This cable has been coordinated with Embassy Beijing.
HILL
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE FOR S/S/GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR
STATE FOR EAP/CM AND DRL
STATE PASS NIH/FOGARTY INTERNATIONAL CENTER
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL FOR CHRISTINA COLLINS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/3/2033
TAGS: PHUM KHIV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: HENAN AIDS CAMPAIGNER GAO YAOJIE'S MEMOIRS SET FOR EARLY
2008 RELEASE
CHENGDU 00000002 001.2 OF 003
CLASSIFIED BY: John Hill, Acting Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General, Chengdu, China.
REASON: 1.4 (d)
1. (C) Summary: Dr. Gao Yaojie's youngest sister discussed
her two week stay with her sister in Zhengzhou, Henan Province.
Gao is closely monitored and her family members regularly
pressured. Gao's next two books -- on AIDS in Henan and her
memoirs -- may tempt the authorities to deal more harshly with
the 81 year old AIDS awareness campaigner after they are
published in Hong Kong as early as March 2008. End summary.
-------------- --------------
--------------
Dr. Gao in Zhengzhou: Finished Writing Books While Under Watch
-------------- --------------
--------------
2. (C) Dr. Gao's youngest sister, a US LPR who spends several
months a year in Chengdu, discussed Dr. Gao Yaojie's situation,
the pressure on her family member, and precautions being taken
to ensure the publication of Dr. Gao's books should she be
arrested. Dr. Gao spent the last months of 2007 finishing two
new books.
-- "The AIDS Wound" [Azi zhi shang] now in the second round of
galley proofs, will be published in 2008 by Mingbao in Hong Kong
which has purchased the Chinese traditional character rights.
-- Dr. Gao has just finished her memoirs, tentatively entitled
"Eighty Years Are Not A Dream" [Rensheng Baxun Bushi Meng] .
-- The approaches to Dr. Gao's building is monitored by five
video cameras. The guard is not always there. Two BBC
journalists visited her in late November. Family members are
allowed to visit Dr. Gao. During her early 2007 house arrest,
family visits were not allowed.
-- Dr. Gao does not type so two AIDS orphans she has supported
for the past decade came on weekends to type her manuscript. One
of them has just started university in Henan. She told them not
to tell anyone what is in her manuscript. She has told everyone
that her books will not be ready for two years so the police
will not try to seize the manuscript. Her sister says that Dr.
Gao feels that there are only a very few people she can trust.
Dr. Gao told her sister in late December that her memoirs are
complete and have been sent to the publisher (Mingbao) in Hong
Kong. She said that both books might be published in Hong Kong
in Chinese as early as March 2008.
--------------
A Glimpse at Dr. Gao's Memoirs
--------------
3. (C) Dr. Gao's sister showed Congenoff a nearly complete
copy of Dr. Gao's memoirs along with family photographs and
documents. Dr. Gao begins with the background of her family in
their ancestral home in Shandong Province, which they had to
leave in 1937 because of the war. Dr. Gao writes of her
experiences as a wartime college student who moved to southwest
China along with the Nationalist government as did many students
at the time. During the Cultural Revolution Dr. Gao was
sentenced to labor reform for a year and her son for two years.
Like many other Chinese, Dr. Gao received a letter in the early
1980s absolving her of the supposed Cultural Revolution era
crimes.
4. (C) The heart of Dr. Gao's memoirs begin after her
retirement from her career as a gynecologist in Zhengzhou, the
capital of Henan. She began speaking out and agitating against
the many quack doctors and counterfeit medicines in Henan during
the early 1980s. While the Henan authorities supported her in
these early efforts, they applied strong pressure against her
when she spoke out early against the blood disaster of
contaminated blood spread by government run blood banks that
pooled blood from donors into tanks and then returned the blood
CHENGDU 00000002 002.2 OF 003
to the donors after plasma had been extracted. For many years
she has been involved not only in helping people with HIV/AIDS
but also their families and orphans. At times lionized by the
Chinese media as a heroine and sometimes placed under house
arrest or harassed through pressure placed on her family
members, she found her life as an AIDS awareness campaigner
often a nightmare but kept pressing on.
5. (C) The Henan Province blood disaster remains very
sensitive. Both the provincial authorities and the central
government were involved in blood banking and the subsequent
cover-up. Over the past few years Dr. Gao has continued to
point to problems with the blood supply in Henan Province. She
tracks cases of people who contracted HIV as a result of blood
transfusions and continues to speak out and press the
authorities about these cases.
6. (C) Dr. Gao told her sister that for the last five years
people getting blood transfusions in Henan had to sign a waiver
that they understand that the blood they are getting might be
contaminated with HIV or other disease agents. [Note: A Chengdu
contact of the Consulate said that a friend had to sign a
similar waiver in Chengdu in early 2007 before getting a blood
transfusion. A Chinese lawyer asked about this told Congenoff
that under Chinese civil law a contract or waiver cannot
diminish the responsibility of the hospital but most Chinese
people don't know this. End note]
--------------
Scenes From Dr. Gao's Memoirs
--------------
7. (C) Some of these stories from Dr. Gao via her sister will
be in Dr. Gao's memoirs.
--- Dr. Gao told her sister that fifth ranking Politburo member
Li Changchun has pressured the Henan leadership to either get
Dr. Gao out of the country, put her under house arrest, or under
(police?) arrest, with a preference for the second option.
--Dr. Gao said that even after Hu Jintao ordered that Dr. Gao be
allowed to go to the U.S. to receive the leadership award from
Vital Voices, Henan authorities continued to put pressure on Dr.
Gao's son to persuade Dr. Gao not to go.
-- When Dr. Gao was to fly to the U.S., her family did not want
to drive her, fearing that an accident would be arranged. The
head of the local health department drove her to the airport.
-- At the airport, three senior Henan officials appeared to
wish her a good trip. "Here is what we want you to say in
America", they said. She threw down the papers at their feet
and got on the aircraft.
-- Dr.Gao told her sister that young public security officers
guarding her door in February were very confused that the top
party leadership of Henan brought her flowers and gifts while
she was under house arrest. "What kind of person is this?," they
asked.
-- During her early 2007 house arrest, harassment of her family
members, especially of her son was much worse that harassment of
Dr. Gao herself. Her daughter, son, and daughter-in-law were
followed by two public security cars each to and from work.
Public Security Officers appeared every day where her son, an
auto mechanic works. They would say. "We came to see how you
are" and leave.
--------------
Dr. Gao's Health
--------------
CHENGDU 00000002 003.2 OF 003
8. (C) Although Dr. Gao had good results from her Spring
health checkup while visiting in New York earlier this year, at
81 she has several problems including arthritis and a cataract
in her right eye. Now that her manuscripts are with the
publisher, Dr. Gao plans to go to Hong Kong to have eye surgery
in March after collecting some clothing for AIDS orphans. Dr.
Gao fears that if she had surgery in China, some mishap might be
arranged. Her books may be published while she is in Hong Kong.
-------------- --------------
--------------
Comment: Dr. Gao Combats Both Disease and Political Pathologies
-------------- --------------
--------------
9. (C) The situation of people with HIV/AIDS in China has
improved considerably over the past several years with Chinese
government policy changes, including providing retrovirals to
some people with HIV. Dr. Gao Yaojie has continued to document
many individual cases of blood contamination in Henan province
that appear to illustrate a reckless disregard for the welfare
of Chinese citizens. For Dr. Gao, HIV/AIDS is not a matter of
how many hundreds of thousands or millions of people have
HIV/AIDS in China, but of many individual cases, each one of
them important. For Dr. Gao, the basic pathology is not
biological but the powerlessness of people to protect themselves
against the arbitrary power of local officialdom.
10. (U) This cable has been coordinated with Embassy Beijing.
HILL