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More unfavorable publicity came in June when Jintao had to undergo medical checkups to ensure he was SARS-free when meeting President Bush and other G-8 leaders in France. There is little doubt that China's international standing was clearly badly damaged by its government's mishandling of the SARS epidemic.

On July 21, 2004, Dr. Bates Gill, Freeman Chair in China Studies Committee on House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, stated official Chinese estimates show China now has roughly 840,000 persons living with the HIV virus and as of the end of 2003, only 62,159 persons had been tested and officially confirmed to be HIV-positive. "The remaining HIV-positive individuals in China, estimated at 780,000 persons or more, are not known to public health authorities, and the individuals themselves probably do not know their status, posing significant risks for the further spread of HIV." Yet, outside observers believe that...
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