LAST year Li Tian (not her real name) spent a month in a mental hospital. She has suffered from depression for years, but was not particularly low or anxious at the time. It was just that world leaders were preparing to gather in Hangzhou, the eastern city where she lives, for a G2O summit. Ms Li manages her illness with medication, but the authorities have it on record that she can be "unstable" (their evidence: she spent three months in a psychiatric hospital with postnatal depression some years ago). The government did not want any public outburst to mar what it saw as a hugely important event. So "someone from the community" visited her father, Ms Li says, and "suggested" that she check in to a psychiatric facility. Sufferers are still routinely treated as a danger to society.
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