Philip P. Pan just had a story of a Chinese AIDS activist Li Dan on the Washington Post today.
“The rise and fall of Li and the Dongzhen School for AIDS Orphans illustrates a broader struggle that has begun to reshape the world’s largest authoritarian political system: a battle by a wide assortment of citizen groups to establish civil society and influence the government in a country where the party has long dominated all aspects of public life.
The party still tries to control all social organizations in China. But after a quarter-century of capitalist-style economic reforms, Chinese enjoy greater prosperity and personal freedom than ever before under Communist rule, and growing numbers are taking advantage of both to band together and campaign for causes as varied as environmental protection, an end to domestic violence and the preservation of Chinese architecture. ”
