Chinese AIDS activist and physician Wan Yanhai, and Bates Gill, Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies will give the Edwin B. Lee Lecture on Thursday, April 3 at 7:30 p.m., in the Kirner-Johnson auditorium. Their lecture, "China's Looming AIDS Crisis," is sponsored by the Edwin B. Lee Fund and the Dean of Faculty's Office, and is free and open to the public.
Wan Yanhai, known as "China's most prominent AIDS activist," is a long-time gay rights advocate and AIDS activist. He was detained by the Chinese government on August 24 2002, for publishing critical information on the AIDS epidemic in China. In December, Wan Yanhai was awarded the U.N. Human Rights Award by Kofi Anan for his work with the Aizhi Action Project.
Bates Gill holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He previously served as a senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and inaugural director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. Prior to that position, he directed East Asia programs at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute, Monterey, California and at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and formerly held the Fei Yiming Chair in Comparative Politics at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Chinese and American Studies, Nanjing, China.
A specialist in East Asian foreign policy and politics, Gill's research focuses primarily on Northeast Asian political and security issues, especially with regard to China. His current projects include research on the divergence in strategic outlook which increasingly characterizes U.S.-China relations, on Chinese nuclear weapons modernization, and on the challenge of HIV/AIDS in China.
