In China, when the first AIDS case was confirmed, the Chinese government set out policies to stop the entry of infected persons into the country in an attempt to stem the spread of HIV. However, as this response was not realistic, it impeded prevention rather having positive effects. It was not until the spread of […]

The main characteristic of the HIV/AIDS issue in East Asia is the relatively low HIV infection rate, as a percentage of the admittedly large population. Although the proportion is low, however, the actual numbers of people who get infected with HIV continues to increase. At the International Congress of AIDS in Asia and the Pacific […]

Mongolia is an inland country whose population is 2,500,000 where many people live a nomadic life (see also Bille’s and Carlson’s chapters in this volume). The have only been five reported cases ofHIV/AIDS since 1992 and three of them are still alive. UNAIDS estimates that the number of people infected with HIV was less than […]

In Japan there were 9,426 reported cases of HIV infection and 4,468 of AIDS by the end of 2007. Regarding the mode of transmission, most are cases of sexual contacts and the cases of infection and AIDS among IDUs are reported as under one per cent. Most reported HIV infection and AIDS cases are of […]

In Hong Kong the reported cases of HIV/AIDS are increasing every year and the accumulated cases at the end of June 2008 were 3,822 cases of HIV infection and 966 cases of AIDS. The main mode of transmission is sexual contact. Recently, an increase in infection among MSM is prominent and in 2004 the number […]

In Taiwan the first case of infection with HIV was reported in 1984 and the number of infections, especially among homosexual and heterosexual sexual contacts, increased gradually until 2004. There was a sudden increase in 2004; in 2005 it reached a peak; and after that the rate of new infections started to decrease. This drastic […]

In South Korea the first case of HIV/AIDS was reported in 1985; numbers have increased since then, with drastic increases from 2000. The cumulative total number of cases of HIV/AIDS up to the end of 2007 was 5,323. In all the reported cases, the main mode of transmission has been sexual contact between MSM or […]

The Chinese Ministry of Health, UNAIDS and WHO estimate that 700,000 people are infected with HIV in the whole of China. Among them 30.8 per cent are women. They also estimate that the rate of infection among the whole population is 0.05 per cent. People with AIDS number 85,000. In 2007 there were 50,000 newly-infected […]

Kazuya Kawaguchi Introduction In the age of globalisation, no part of the world can be isolated from the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Countries in East Asia, too, are connected with the global forces which facilitate the spread of this disease. In East Asia, it was only in the early twenty-first century that responses to the HIV/ AIDS […]

O’Connell Davidson (1998) has observed that clients’ public uses of prostitution can act as a social ritual to build up manhood (for example, the collective uses of prostitutes in the armed forces). Currently, sex tourism and he hua jeou are the most conspicuous modes of collective sexual consumption among Taiwanese men. In the 1960s Taiwan […]