[COMMENTARY] How Out is Out in China?

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Western media has been full of reports lately about Shanghai’s first ever gay pride festival. While police canceled some events, others went forward without interruption. It’s really a victory for China’s growing LGBT movement – as we learned when we hosted Comrades: the Chinese LGBT film festival here in New York last year, police have often shut down similar events in the past.

All this raises the question…what’s it really like to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) in China these days? We’ve been trying to get to the bottom of this, and the reality seems to be — surprise! — pretty complex.

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[COMMENTARY] Challenges for NGOs in China

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By Yu Fangqiang

This week’s blog entry is from Chinese lawyer and rights advocate Yu Fangqiang, who wrote this essay as part of our online colloquium on challenges for civil society in Asia. See the original post in Chinese and English, and responses at Asia Report.

In mainland China it is extremely hard to start up a non-governmental organization (NGO) without a background in government. The difficulties are due to restrictive government policies, monopolization of resources by NGOs with government background, a lack of trust throughout the overall society, the lack of capabilities among the grassroots’ organizations, and unrealistic expectations from funders.

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[COMMENTARY] U.S. Should Back the Kids, Not the Pharmaceutical Companies

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[:en]By Josh Greenstein

Asia Catalyst’s recent report vividly depicted the barriers Chinese kids face to getting AIDS treatment that they need to survive. One key problem is that powerful U.S. based pharmaceutical companies have made some AIDS drugs extraordinarily expensive – including both second-line drugs that are essential for those who have built up resistance to the first line of AIDS medication, and pediatric medicines. The U.S. government has, until now, backed the pharmaceutical companies in their campaign to penalize countries that dare to invoke their rights to produce these medicines without patents. It is time for the U.S. government and big pharma to get out of the way and allow developing countries to give their citizens the life-saving drugs they desperately need.

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[EVENT] Asia Catalyst’s Panel Discussion on Pediatric AIDS in China (Video)

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On April 28, Asia Catalyst hosted a panel at NYU School of Law on pediatric AIDS in China featuring Meg Davis, Lauren Burke, Joanne Csete and Ken Legins, and moderated by Jerome A. Cohen. The panel also announced the  launching of our report I Will Fight to My Last Breath: Barriers to AIDS Treatment for Children in China.

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