Viral Reflections: Placing China in Global Health Histories

Abstract

Public health in China has become a global concern as a consequence of the outbreak and worldwide spread of COVID-19. This article examines the historical place of China in international and global health. Contrary to prevalent narratives in the history of medicine, China and Chinese historical actors played key roles in this field throughout the twentieth century. Several episodes illustrate this argument: the Qing organization of the International Plague Conference in 1911; the role of China in the work of the interwar League of Nations Health Organization and postwar establishment of the World Health Organization; Cold War medical diplomacy; and Chinese models of primary health care during the 1970s. These case studies together show that Chinese physicians and administrators helped shape concepts and practices of “global health” even before that term rose to prominence in the 1990s, and current events are best understood in the context of this history.

Concluding conversation: decentring science diplomacy

“…The British Journal for the History of Science any notions of the PRC as lacking agency or influence in the decades before the eras of rapprochement and 'reform and opening up'. 33 So this, I think, is a really positive shift, especially in pushing for narratives emphasizing agency.…”

The past and present of pandemic management: health diplomacy, international epidemiological surveillance, and COVID-19

“…Yet, it seems that political rivalries and the resulting lack of international coordination and cooperation remain mostly unsolved, even today. While a worn-out "epidemic Orientalism" leads European and American politicians to blame China and Asian countries for having generated the pandemic and for denying civil rights through severe lockdowns (Rudyak et al 2021), the self-image of liberal, enlightened societies needs to be amended, and the history of health diplomacy is a convenient vantage point to do so (Brazelton 2020;de Almeida 2015;Vargha 2021). Rereading the relationship between European power politics, its economic interests and the biomedicine of the past is key to imagining and planning a different future for international health coordination.…”