Recently, when talking about the AIDS problem in China, Vice Health Minister Wang Longde indicated that employees in a "special line of business" might be required to undergo compulsory medical check-ups.

Wang went on to say that employees in certain trades were more likely to engage in high-risk activities and that, therefore, sometime in the future there might be regulations requiring physical examinations for these employees.

I think this is undoubtedly a correct move, though it might spark some controversy. As a matter of fact, whatever our view of the women working in "entertainment" establishments, we have to admit that to give them a proper name is still a matter of controversy. In China, female "entertainment" workers are popularly known as "xiaojie" (literally meaning "Miss").

About a year ago, a friend of mine, a family planning official, was put in charge of an AIDS prevention programme funded by grants from Australia. He needed to have a report on the implementation of the programme translated into English and to send the English version of the report to the Australian fund-donor, so he asked me to do the translation.

The translation went quite smoothly, except that I had some hesitation in choosing the right word for "xiaojie" used in such phrases as "xiaojie in recreational places". To translate it literally as"Miss" or "young lady" might give rise to misunderstanding but to translate it as "prostitute(s)" would be too straightforward - though that is what the euphemism really means. At last I decided that the closest translation for "xiaojie" should be "working girl", a euphemism for prostitute.

According to the latest estimate by the Ministry of Health, the number of HIV infections has reached 840,000 in China, including 80,000 AIDS patients. A widely quoted prediction holds that the number of HIV infections in China will soar to 10 millions by 2010. Clearly it will all be too late to take measures for AIDS prevention by that time .

Analysts have pointed out that China is on the verge of a large scale AIDS epidemic that threatens to undermine the country's unprecedented economic and social progress.

The worsening AIDS situation in the country has something to do with the growing sex industry. In recent years hundreds of thousands of rural people have migrated to the cities looking for jobs. Unable to find work in the cities, some of them were forced, or lured, into the sex industry. Many of the sex workers in China are not aware of safety concerns and some of them have sex with their clients without condoms.

The re-emergence of prostitution doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the policy of reform and opening-up. We should have a correct and comprehensive understanding of this. While rapid economic development and better lifestyles in the cities have attracted a large influx of rural population, including a large number of young women, many of these young rural women fail to find jobs, or the jobs they get are not sufficiently well-paid to make them better off, and so they switch to prostitution.

Prostitution is creating another bridge for HIV infection to spread to the general population. At present, curbing prostitution is mainly the responsibility of public security bureaus. However, there are some people who argue that curbing prostitution is not especially important. The reason, they say, is that while businessmen do like "to enjoy a good time" the purpose of giving or accepting "entertainment" in business settings is to create goodwill. That's an argument which sounds convincing at first, but doesn't stand up to much thought. The question is, can sexually-oriented "entertainment" really help to promote economic development? This is an issue which deserves much consideration.

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