China’s two top leaders are doing more than ever to highlight AIDS awareness. Last Friday, President Hu Jintao visited AIDS patients at a Beijing hospital, warmly greeting them and asking about their treatment.

For his part, Premier Wen Jiabao traveled to Wenlou village in Henan province to visit AIDS patients and orphans. State media showed him singing songs with children at an AIDS orphanage, and later visiting a couple and their four adopted AIDS orphans.

But all was not as it seemed. This is what Hong Kong’s Apple Daily said (in Chinese) about those present in the village:

“Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is known to have said that he wants to hear the truth and that only democratic supervision can guarantee that things work.  But when he went to Wenlou village, the local Henan authorities organized 1,600 public security officers to pose as local residents to welcome him.  Meanwhile, certain outspoken AIDS patients and activists were placed under house arrest.

According to The Guardian, the villager Ma Shenyi, who is a widower trying to rear three children, said that the plainclothes police came to his home and warned him not to go out.  Ma said, "I don't understand that when the Premier comes to visit us, real villagers are not allowed to meet him.  The only people who can meet Premier Wen are those who are paid to say nice things."

Thanks to the ESWN blog for pointing this out. Click here to see the photo of the plainclothes cops standing around Premier Wen.

This isn't the first time security forces took over the village for a visit by Premier Wen. According to AIDS activist Hu Jia, who is under house arrest in Beijing, they did it the first time Wen visited Henan Province AIDS villages as well. Activist Hu wrote a blog entry last week, translated here at the Black and White Cat blog, discussing what happened:

"Premier Wen Jiabao doesn’t know that the last time he visited, 1,200 police were dispatched to seal off the road to Wenlou from the county town of Shangcai and a large number of local cadres pretended to be villagers welcoming him. Yang Songquan personally made sure that people who were likely to meet Premier Wen would answer his questions in exactly the way the Henan government wanted, without getting a single word wrong. That show of being close to the people was a waste of time and money. As soon as Premier Wen left, the local authorities breathed a sigh of relief; the country’s premier had turned out to be easy to handle. Now, large numbers of Henan police have already been stationed in Wenlou and sealed off key areas. The local government has also put some active villagers with AIDS under house arrest, usually sending two village cadres and two security guards hired by the Shangcai county police for each “trouble maker.”