China has coined a new phrase for a new brand of criminal, the infamous 'AIDS pickpockets.'

Some months ago, students of mine told me about an incident here in lovely Hangzhou where a group of petty thieves were rounded up by the Public Security Bureau. When the police moved in on them to arrest them, the men all announced that they had AIDS. After some uncomfortable moments of wondering what to do with them, the police eventually brought them into custody, and administered HIV tests. It turned out that about half were HIV-positive.

The story struck me as funny, and completely bizarre. It seemed strange that the pickpockets would use that as a way to keep the police away. But as I've spent more time here in China, I realize that those pickpockets were momentarily ingenious. There is a lot of misinformation here about HIV/AIDS (i.e. students think you can get the virus from mosquitoes and from kissing) -- and the pickpockets used that misinformation to their advantage.

Yesterday, while browsing through the China Daily's web site, I saw this article about 'AIDS pickpockets' and the "conundrum" faced by law enforcement. (There's a pretty hilarious part in the article where one cop asks one of these 'AIDS pickpockets' to take a cab to the police station because he didn't want to touch him. All the cab drivers refused.)

Despite all the talk about possibly getting AIDS from the pickpockets, there is no mention in the article about how AIDS is actually contracted.