Cultural Resilience of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Global Health Regime

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the Chinese government and people to utilize traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in addressing the crisis. It is not only a question of the effectiveness of herbal treatment but also an alternative philosophy of life, countering capitalist logic based on the survival of the fittest and an orientation toward profit-making. This article argues for the cultural resilience of TCM during the pandemic, then revisits its history of subjugation in modern China. Although this millennial tradition was subsumed within one century under the powerful Eurocentric discourse, TCM remains vibrant at the grassroots level. The article concludes that the revival of traditional medicine from the Global South is one of the important and effective ways of decolonizing medical terrains.