The lack of an explicit ‘sodomy’ law did not mean tolerance for homosexuals in post-revolutionary China. Police actions against gay men cruising for sex in public places or against gay or transgender street prostitution have often been justified by laws on public nuisance, loitering, or vagrancy. As Sang points out, ‘since the economic reform and open-door policy began, the regulation concerning “hooliganism” [liumang xingwei] had been applied by the police to those found to engage in homosexual acts, even though there is in fact no specific law criminalising homosexuality’ (Sang 2003: 167). Li also referred to specific stories of police and administrative harassment and surveillance of gay men in the Maoist period (Li 2006). A judicial decision in 1991, well known among urban gays and lesbians according to Lisa Rofel, came about after the father of a young woman pressed charges of hooliganism against a masculine lesbian with whom his daughter was now living. The masculine lesbian partner was given 15 days administrative detention ‘to calm public opinion’, but the public security bureau at the national level made a ruling that no law had been broken and no administrative detention was appropriate (Rofel 2007: 153). A 1993 directive from the Ministry of Public Security said that homosexuality alone did not justify a charge of hooliganism, a move sometimes described as decriminalising homosexuality. The offence of hooliganism itself was dropped from the law in 1997 (Guo 2007).
There have been occasional accounts of raids on parks and bars in China. For example, 110 men were detained in a raid on Renmin Gongyuan (People’s Park) in Guangzhou in 2009, and similar police actions have occurred in a park in Beijing (UNDP 2010: 56). Some harassment or surveillance has also occurred in Taiwan where the legislation most commonly cited in police actions against homosexuals is the Criminal Law Code’s Article criminalising behaviour allegedly ‘deleterious to custom’ and the Social Order Law’s Article criminalising behaviour supposedly ‘deleterious to fine customs’ (Martin 2003: 62). Ho cites police raids on a cruising area in 1997, gay saunas in 1998, lesbian pubs in 2002 and gay house parties in 2004. A police raid on a private party in Taipei in 2004 resulted in the arrest of 93 gay men. Police said they were concerned with drug use (Ho 2010: 540).
Vietnam has vilified homosexuality, without ever having an express prohibition of homosexual acts. In 1995 the Vietnamese government launched a ‘Social Evils Campaign’ that decried ‘cultural poisons’ such as prostitution, heroin and pornographic videos. Throughout the campaign the Vietnamese press carried constant reports of teenage violence, sexual assaults, drunkenness, drug addiction and homosexuality (Barr 2002: 19). In 2002 state-run media in Vietnam again declared that homosexuality was a ‘social evil’ on a par with drug use and prostitution, and proposed laws to allow the arrest of gay couples. The government reported that homosexuals had infiltrated the tourism, restaurant and karaoke bar industries. But such campaigns seem over, with the government now working with specific LGBT NGOs (see Newton in this volume).
An NGO has reported proactive police surveillance in Mongolia, including covert surveillance of known LGBT persons, keeping files on such people, monitoring LGBT social events and filming those in attendance, phone-tapping, arbitrary arrests, intimidation, threats, and physical and sexual assaults on LGBT persons while in custody (UNDP 2010: 57).