Foreign Ministry Spokesperson's Press Conference, Kong Quan (partial) 

Q: UN Secretary-General Annan urged countries to ratify the CTBT. Could you please tell us what is the progress of the ratification process by the NPC? Is there a timetable? Secondly, it is reported that Premier Wen Jiabao will visit the United States in December. Could you please confirm? Lastly, yesterday the Human Rights Watch urged China to publicly conduct a full investigation of the Aids situation in the Henan Province. Do you have any comment?

A: China attaches importance to the CTBT. We believe that such a treaty is important to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the nuclear disarmament process in particular. The Chinese Government has signed the treaty and submitted to the NPC for examination. We hope to see the early coming into force of the treaty. The NPC will go through the necessary procedures for the ratification of the treaty according to the relevant legal requirements.

On the visit to the United States by Premier Wen Jiabao, China and the United States have maintained exchanges of high level visits. Such visits are very important for the enhancement of understanding, trust and cooperation among the leaders. The visits are being discussed. We will brief you in due course.

On the Aids situation in Henan, probably you still remember that, at the end of last year, we invited officials from the Ministry of Health for a special briefing. It is true that there were some problems with some blood collection stations in some parts of Henan, which led to serious spread of Aids. The Central Government attaches great importance to the issue and ordered the local governments to thoroughly clean up their blood collection stations. The rapid spread of Aids in certain parts of Henan has been somewhat contained. However, the consequence of the question is serious. The Central Government has allocated special funds annually for the timely treatment of the Aids patients. All preventative measures are taken to avoid the spread of the disease.

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