China in Global Health: Past and Present

Mary Brazelton argues that the territories and peoples associated with China have played vital roles in the emergence of modern international health. In the early twentieth century, repeated epidemic outbreaks in China justified interventions by transnational organizations; these projects shaped strategies for international health. China has also served as a space of creativity and reinvention, in which administrators developed new models of health care during decades of war and revolution, even as traditional practitioners presented alternatives to Western biomedicine. The 1949 establishment of the People's Republic of China introduced a new era of socialist internationalism, as well as new initiatives to establish connections across the non-aligned world using medical diplomacy. After 1978, the post-socialist transition gave rise to new configurations of health governance. The rich and varied history of Chinese involvement in global health offers a means to make sense of present-day crises.