Internationalization of TCM: it comes at a good time

19-02-01 People's Daily overseas edition

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a treasure of the Chinese nation, belonging not only to China but also to the world. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) will not only benefit patients around the world, but also showcase Chinese traditional culture and philosophy in an all-round way, making it a shining "name card" for promoting people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.

So, how to build TCM brand and promote TCM to the world? This reporter interviewed the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine.

A western doctor sees a Chinese doctor

In July 2016, the china-russia traditional Chinese medicine center (st. Petersburg), located in the southwest of st. Petersburg, Russia, officially opened for business. The center was established by Beijing university of traditional Chinese medicine and st. Petersburg water group under the special support of international cooperation of state administration of traditional Chinese medicine.

As the first Chinese medicine teaching and research institution approved by the two governments and led by the Chinese side to operate with the qualification of a hospital in Russia, although the center has been recognized and concerned by the high-level officials of the two countries since its preparation and establishment, how to make more ordinary people accept Chinese medicine and have a correct understanding of it? This is placed before all staff of traditional Chinese medicine center the first problem. Professor wang chaoyang, then the President of the center, said that the only way to convince local people of TCM is to treat it effectively.

The center cooperates with several western hospitals and medical universities in st. Petersburg to select local diseases with high incidence and poor efficacy of western medicine for targeted treatment, such as apoplexy sequelae and neurodermatitis. Through the efforts of the team of doctors in the center, many patients gradually improved with the help of TCM diagnosis and treatment. This impressed st. Petersburg residents, especially doctors at the local west hospital, who came to accept traditional Chinese medicine. Thus, an interesting phenomenon gradually appeared in the clinic of traditional Chinese medicine center: 20% of the patients who came to the center for medical treatment were doctors engaged in western medicine.

Victor is such a "doctor patient". Mr. Wang, a pediatrician and director of a local hospital in his late 70s, had suffered a heart attack with three stents and had been performing acupuncture and treatment at the center since it opened. Victor's trust in TCM came from his grandmother's experience. In the 1970s, victor's grandmother was in danger of dying of heart failure. She was extremely weak after the operation, but after only two weeks of treatment with traditional Chinese acupuncture, her health improved significantly. Seeing that the grandmother who had thought she was going to die soon lived for many years, victor established his trust and affection for traditional Chinese medicine.

Since its opening, the sino-russian traditional Chinese medicine center (st. Petersburg) has treated more than 10,000 patients. Among them are Russian politicians, entrepreneurs, doctors, celebrities and patients from surrounding countries. By virtue of its extraordinary clinical efficacy, the center has been highly praised by the Russian medical community and widely recognized by patients.

An important indicator of eligibility is local coverage. Since April 2016, the china-russia traditional Chinese medicine center (st. Petersburg) has signed agreements with three Russian insurance companies, including Russia's largest state insurance company.

According to the international cooperation department of the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine, overseas TCM center projects like the st Petersburg TCM center have been supported to create 31 international cooperation bases in 2018, and 11 projects have been supported to create international TCM cooperation bases.

In 2016, the national development and reform commission (NDRC), traditional Chinese medicine bureau jointly issued the "area" of Chinese medicine development plan (2016-2020) ", proposed that by 2020, traditional Chinese medicine "in" new pattern of all-round cooperation basic form, with the cooperation of countries along the construction of 30 overseas center of traditional Chinese medicine, 20 items of traditional Chinese medicine issued by international standards, registered 100 kinds of Chinese medicine products, the construction of demonstration base of 50 home medicine external exchanges and cooperation.

The world needs TCM

Zhang boli, an academician of the Chinese academy of engineering, said, "it is the need of The Times for TCM to go global. Indeed, in history, the Chinese nation has survived natural disasters, wars and pestilence, yet it has turned the tide again and again, with its growing population and the inheritance of its civilization. Traditional Chinese medicine has made great contributions to this cause. With the change of people's health concept and medical model, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is showing more and more unique value.

Wang xiaopin, director of the international cooperation department of the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine, said that in recent years, the efficacy and role of traditional Chinese medicine in the prevention and treatment of common diseases, frequently-occurring diseases, chronic diseases and major diseases have been increasingly recognized and accepted by the international community. On the other hand, both developing and developed countries are troubled by the rising medical costs. While providing a diversified healthcare system, reducing the huge government medical expenditure is a problem that every country needs to solve. Traditional medicine is close to people's life, easy to obtain, not difficult to afford, the demand for traditional medicine in various countries is increasing.

In this context, TCM has achieved fruitful results in its efforts to go global. In the past year, the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and the world health organization (who) signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in traditional medicine, giving full play to China's role as a responsible major country in promoting the development of traditional medicine. The preview edition of the eleventh revision of the international classification of diseases (icd-11), which includes the traditional medicine chapter based on the classification of TCM diseases and syndromes, was released, marking the historic entry of TCM into the international mainstream medical classification standard system. At the same time, the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine has promoted the ISO/TC249 international committee on traditional Chinese medicine (ISO/TC249) to issue 31 international standards on traditional Chinese medicine, laying a solid foundation for the standardized use of traditional Chinese medicine in the international context...

Up to now, TCM has spread to 183 countries and regions around the world. According to the world health organization, 103 member states have approved the use of acupuncture and moxibustion, among which 29 have established laws and regulations on traditional medicine and 18 have included acupuncture and moxibustion in their medical insurance systems. Traditional Chinese medicine has gradually entered the international pharmaceutical system, and has been registered as a medicine in Russia, Cuba, Vietnam, Singapore, the united Arab emirates and other countries.

A staff member from the international cooperation department of the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine said that although the achievements are satisfactory and TCM is faced with rare opportunities to "go global", it should be clearly recognized that TCM also faces many challenges in the process of "going global" :

First, the cultural and scientific identity of TCM. Since TCM and modern medicine are of different cultural backgrounds, they have different theoretical systems, therapeutic principles and methods. Although the unique curative effect and scientific connotation of TCM as a medical science are gradually recognized by more governments and people in the world, there are still many doubts.

Second, management and legal obstacles. Most countries' management mode based on modern medical science has policy and technical barriers, which restrict the access of TCM.

Third, there is a shortage of expatriates. Due to the rapid development of domestic economy and the promotion of the status and treatment of traditional Chinese medicine, it is difficult to send staff to work abroad. In addition, exchanges with "One Belt And One Road" countries often encounter "small language crisis", which restricts the in-depth development of cooperation.

At the same time, the promotion of TCM to the world should also take into account both international and domestic. The success of TCM in the international market depends to a large extent on whether the brand and image of TCM are well established in the domestic market. How to supervise, control and manage this problem is also a challenge faced by the current TCM bureau and other relevant departments.

Health care needs to be taken care of

In recent years, some traditional Chinese medicine health care services have been mixed, their service capabilities are uneven, and their product publicity is not scientific, standardized or legal. This has brought harm to the health of the people and affected the healthy development of traditional Chinese medicine.

In this regard, the state administration of traditional Chinese medicine policies and regulations and supervision department, the relevant person in charge said: In view of the current domestic market some borrow the reality of the line in the name of a violation of Chinese medicine, damage the image of traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine bureau attaches great importance to, investigate and crack down on false illegal advertisement monitoring for a long time or in the name of traditional Chinese medicine under the guise of TCM theory and terminology seek improper interests related to illegal behavior, jointly issued by the state administration of market regulation and other 11 department "seriously investigate false illegal advertisement scheme for maintaining good advertising market order", and the original national health commission jointly issued "the opinions on strengthening supervision and administration of traditional Chinese medicine", to carry out the medical institutions in accordance with the law practice special supervision and inspection, etc. On January 7 this year, the japan-china medical administration and 13 ministries and commissions jointly issued a document, deploying to carry out the "health care" market chaos action for a hundred days, requiring the competent departments of traditional Chinese medicine at all levels to severely investigate and deal with all kinds of illegal behaviors in the name of "health care".

As early as April 2014, the bureau of traditional Chinese medicine put forward the negative list of service items of non-medical institutions and their personnel in the reply to the supervision of traditional Chinese medicine in the special action against illegal practice of medicine.

"Approval" clearly states: "non-medical institutions and their personnel shall not use acupuncture, cicatricial moxibustion, foaming moxibustion, traction, pulling method, traditional Chinese medicine minimally invasive technology, traditional Chinese medicine enema and other invasive, invasive or high risk techniques in business activities; No drug prescription shall be issued; Shall not publicize the therapeutic effect; The clients shall not be given oral Chinese herbal medicine pieces that do not conform to the provisions of the list of articles that are both food and medicine, the list of articles that can be used in health food or the list of prohibited Chinese herbal medicine pieces that are prohibited in the list of prohibited articles for health food.

That is to say, health products are not medicine, health care can not replace treatment; Health care institutions can only use a safe, non-invasive, non-traumatic Chinese medicine technology. It is reported that after the implementation of this negative list, the response is good, widely recognized.

On the one hand, we should constantly improve laws and regulations; on the other hand, we should constantly implement dynamic monitoring. While real-time monitoring, how to make the information better and more timely reach the general public is another important subject. In response, the department of policy, regulation and supervision said that the "TCM supervision and law enforcement information platform", which has been under construction before, has started internal trial operation, and TCM supervision and law enforcement information, blacklist and other information will be released on this platform. In the future, the data of the platform will also be connected to the national credit information platform of the national development and reform commission and other relevant departments, and joint punishment will be imposed on dishonest behaviors and illegal practices that seriously endanger the normal medical order, so as to further improve the credibility system in the field of traditional Chinese medicine.

The development of traditional Chinese medicine is the foundation for China to go global. In turn, modernization and internationalization can better promote the development of traditional Chinese medicine, which is the dialectics to ensure the sustainable and healthy development of traditional Chinese medicine.