Giving Chinese medicine respect it deserves in China
- By Wan Lixin
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, June 6, 2012
Timorously defensive
But the ministry's statement is timorously defensive. My opinion is that TCM's worth does not hinge on new scientific evidence, for TCM and Western medicine view the world differently. If Western medicine fails to see what TCM is seeing, that merely suggests the limitations of Western medicine, which are many.
TCM views human beings more as part of nature, thus, it works to restore human inner equilibrium. Balance, moderation and harmony become important TCM concepts.
By contrast, Western medicine is human-centered, to the exclusion of all other concerns. This difference is not only evident in different views on life, but on death as well.
Traditionally a TCM doctor would adamantly ignore entreaties by relatives, if he had diagnosed a case as hopeless.
Those doctors tended to believe that "bark and herbal roots can cure the disease, but cannot save life." It was an enlightened view based on philosophical acknowledgement of human mortality, and thus very sensible.
Western medicine, on the contrary, would sustain a human body even in persistent vegetative state.
The West's single-minded pursuit of one metric or purpose often blinds Westerners to the existence of larger purposes. Unbeknowst to many of them, the fanatic pursuit of wealth and affluence is worsening the living conditions of all living species on earth.
The prolongation of human life at all costs also complicates the many ethical, social, and environmental problems already confronting men.
We do not know if Liu Weizhong, the beleaguered provincial health director in Gansu, has other motivations for promoting TCM, but from what I can find, Liu has been consistent in his stand since he was a college student of Western medicine.
He is advocating a cause that should be better advocated by the state.
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