Zhang Ran is a child of evolutionary China, a country changing at a terrific pace. In his early 20s, Zhang is working on the Red Cross Society of China's new national HIV programme, which will at least double the amount of its HIV work across this vast country by 2010.

Based at the Society's headquarters in Beijing, Zhang told me he had studied international politics, but when I asked if he was interested in working abroad, his reply was emphatic: "No, I am happy living in China. I am very excited about the changes, which you will have seen here. I want to be a part of that."

This is my first visit to Beijing so I haven't noticed the changes but my colleagues certainly have - mainly the massive increase in cars. Visitors flying to Beijing arrive through the vast new third terminal at Beijing Capital Airport, designed by leading British architect Norman Foster. It is as sparkling as London Heathrow's new Terminal 5, only the baggage transfer worked to military precision.

I met Zhang at the Chinese Red Cross Training Centre where the walls were still decorated with HIV awareness posters from the programme's high profile launch just days before.

The posters graphically illustrate the main means of the virus's transmission in China -through heterosexual intercourse and injecting drug use. From the ninth floor of the building, the view is of tower blocks and cranes, which dwarf the rows of low, blue-grey roofs of old Beijing. The sky is completely blocked out by the city's famous hazy smog.

Zhang and I discuss China's HIV problem. The estimated prevalence rate is low at just 0.05 percent, but like the sky over Beijing, the picture is not clear. Most cases go unreported and testing is not yet widespread.

When voluntary counselling testing services began in 2004, there was a dramatic increase in the number of HIV cases. The United Nations' AIDS agency, UNAIDS, and the Chinese Ministry of Health estimate there are at least 700,000 people living with HIV in China.

While this is not huge for a population of 1.3 billion, the concern is that the epidemic is spreading from high-risk groups such as injecting drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men to the general population.

Modernisation has played a part in the spread of HIV across this country the size of a continent. There is huge internal migration, particularly among young people who move to urban areas for work.

Without the scrutiny of family and close-knit communities, I'm told, many experiment with alcohol, have multiple partners and high levels of sexually transmitted diseases. The economic boom has also led to an inevitable increase in commercial sex workers who often neglect to use condoms.

Zhang explained that HIV is still very stigmatised in China because the general public think it only affects people who engage in this "unrighteous behaviour". There is a great deal of ignorance and silence on the subject.

China could find its evolution, which Zhang and many of his generation are so rightly excited about, stopped dead in its tracks just as many developing African nations experienced when the epidemic took grip there.

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