A retired colonel in China's armed police force, Zhang Guowei, who is gay, was delighted to find an extra-thick copy of Friend Exchange had arrived one morning.

He had been a subscriber to the magazine for the homosexual and AIDS-affected communities since 2001.

But tears welled up when he saw the words "Final Issue" on the cover.

"It was like my best friend suddenly bid me farewell," he said.

The only Chinese magazine providing mental support and AIDS prevention advice to the gay community, Friend Exchange published its final issue after its main sponsor, the Ford Foundation, ended financial support for the bimonthly.

Two years after Joan Kaufman, reproductive health program officer of Ford Foundation China Office, came to China in 1996, she heard about "Friend Exchange," a small magazine being passed hand to hand, and decided to offer financial support.

But now the Ford Foundation has decided to switch assistance to other countries in Southeast Asia and Africa because it regards China as too wealthy for such support.

The magazine's publisher and editor, Zhang Beichuan, said each print run of 15,000 copies had cost about 500,000 yuan (US$73,800).

The magazine has been publicly praised by several senior Chinese officials, including former vice minister of health Wang Longde and Wu Zunyou, head of the AIDS prevention department at China's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In China, the government is the almost exclusive provider of public services and since 2002 the China CDC has done an admirable job in tackling many sensitive AIDS-related issues, Kaufman said. However, the government's efforts, while necessary, were insufficient to prevent HIV infections.

Friend Exchange was successful in promoting knowledge, encouraging gay men and other stigmatized people and helping society understand the community, said Pan Suiming, head of the Institute for Research of Sexology and Gender at Renmin University.

Qiu Renzong, a renowned ethics scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes the closure of Friend Exchange is untimely. "In fact, we need more publications like 'Friend Exchange' to fight the discrimination and stigmatization of AIDS sufferers and other marginalized at-risk groups,"

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