VZCZCXRO3725
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) 
¶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. 
 
 
 
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Dr. Gao in Zhengzhou:  Finished Writing Books While Under Watch 
 
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¶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. 
 
 
 
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A Glimpse at Dr. Gao's Memoirs 
 
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¶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] 
 
 
 
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Scenes From Dr. Gao's Memoirs 
 
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¶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. 
 
 
 
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Dr. Gao's Health 
 
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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. 
 
 
 
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Comment:   Dr. Gao Combats Both Disease and Political Pathologies 
 
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¶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