China’s refusal to allow an HIV-positive Australian author to enter the country has led to calls for the Beijing Government to change the law.

Last night, a Chinese government spokesman said he hoped that writer Robert Dessaix could understand China’s decision.

Dessaix was invited as one of the key speakers at the Australian Literary Festival in Beijing and Shanghai.

But the author says he was trapped into declaring his HIV status when preparing his visa application.

The report in the state-controlled Global Times newspaper quotes Tsinghua University Professor, Li Dun, as saying that the decision by the Chinese government to deny Dessaix a visa “equals discrimination”.

Professor Li goes on to say that “historically speaking, confining people has proven to be ineffective, if not meaningless in preventing the spread of this disease”.

The ABC asked foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang about his government’s decision to deny a visa to one of the key speakers at the festival.

“If he’s HIV positive, according to the current regulations in China, he’s not allowed to enter the country,” Mr Qin said.

“There are clear regulations on this. So we hope that Australians in general and the author himself can understand this.”

But Dessaix, who is at home in Hobart, says he does not.

“The application form for visa states that if you answer yes to the question about whether or not you have HIV, and I quote, ‘you do not lose eligibility for a visa’,” he said.

Dessaix was chosen for the festival as a replacement for author Frank Moorhouse, who had pulled out earlier in protest at China’s jailing of local writer and activist Liu Xiaobo.

Dessaix thinks that it is also possible that the HIV issue was used as an excuse to deny him a visa as a way of giving Australia, in his words, a “little tweak on the nose” in response to the Moorhouse boycott.

“If out of all this the Chinese are encouraged to look again at their blanket ban on people with HIV entering the country, except in this case there is this ban apparently, then it’s been worthwhile,” he said.

“I have not vowed to cause any further trouble. I would just like people in my position in the future to be able to visit China.”

Australian diplomats have already raised this issue with the Chinese government but it has not changed the outcome.