Similarly, in a post-Tiananmen context in which writers and intellectuals were reluctant to embrace political agendas in the public arena, the type of social activism that grew out of the AIDS crisis offered a model of how to go about “changing mindsets” in a bottom-up manner, rather than offering the theoretical blueprints for democratisation for which the 1989 activists were so strongly criticised. While official attitudes did not change perceptibly before the SARS outbreak of 2003, and remained reticent even after that (no senior official in Henan has been held to account two of the provincial secretaries concerned, Li Changchun and Li Keqiang, hold Politburo standing committee positions today 1), the perceived legitimacy of non-governmental organisations was greatly enhanced. 1The HIV/AIDS epidemic that spread in Henan Province (and beyond) in the 1990s through unsafe blood collection represented – in many ways – a watershed for Chinese society in its interaction with the state.
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