The first Chinese Gay pageant that was to be held yesterday was cancelled by the Beijing police on the ground that the organisers had not applied “according to the procedures”. Today, the dedicated page on the website of the one of the organisers leads to a Chinese “page not found”.

To avoid “unnecessary difficulty” the organisers wanted the event to have a low-profile locally and focussed reaching out to the international media and local bloggers given the “complicated situation” and the “possibility of increased scrutiny from the authorities”. But the announcement of the event was promptly picked up by mainstream international media. “A glimpse of new acceptance” wrote The Guardian, “a sign of new openness about homosexuality” for The Independent, the pageant may have fallen victim of its own success in a country were official attitude toward homosexuality can be characterised as “don’t condemn, but don’t promote”. Such attention may have well played against the event taking place.

Seeing the reaction of the Chinese authorities as homophobic would be simplistic. Since 1997 when China decriminalised homosexuality, progress has been slow but has nevertheless happen. In 2001, China acknowledged that homosexuality was not a mental disease. In 2004, recognizing that HIV spread amongst high risk group, China launched the first gay HIV survey. In 2006 an LGBT student group was allowed to be registered at the Sun Yat Sen University in Zhuhai, southern China.

The Chinese government is well aware of the danger of ignoring the risk of an HIV epidemic. What is at stake here has probably more to do with not loosing face in the face of changing times and a fast changing society. On the one hand, the authorities have to show that they are in charge on the other the government has to show his willingness to accept change. In-between, MSM are just a pawn in a game of power between conservative values and the immanent force of change.

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