Cherish civilization roots, draw on other civilizations, be forward-thinking: Globalization of Chinese medicine

Abstract

The World Health Organization has adopted the 11th version of the organization's global compendium-known as the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). For the first time, the new ICD includes details about traditional medicines, which will serve as a major milestone for traditional Chinese medicine for its globalization as knowledge resources. This paper summarizes the main reasons for the globalization of traditional Chinese medicine. Firstly, traditional Chinese medicine recognizes the three scientific attributes of applying system positivism, generating public knowledge, and verifying questions that can be solved. Secondly, the development of traditional Chinese medicine conforms to the needs of the times. The concept of holistic prevention and the practice of people-oriented, syndrome-based and personalized treatment has also been rooted in traditional Chinese medicine. Thirdly, traditional Chinese medicine has rich original and innovative thinking, medical practice as well as profound mass basis. It contains enormous potential for innovation and capacity for achieving the combination with practice. Looking forward to the globalization of traditional Chinese medicine, it still faces many difficulties. Domestically speaking, firstly, it is still a prominent problem for traditional Chinese medicine in terms of deficiency in original and innovative thinking. The therapeutic effect of traditional Chinese medicine has been questioned by some people. Even some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners have weakened the original thinking in their daily practice, with the manifestation of not prescribing according to the traditional Chinese medicine syndrome differentiation prescriptions. Secondly, the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine requires the in-depth integration and convergence of traditional Chinese medicine with modern science and technology, which is one of the major issues now. The living example is that very few high-quality products and service outputs of traditional Chinese medicine have been produced, and it is difficult to find a point of convergence between traditional Chinese medicine and modern science and technology. Eventually, the technology upgrade of traditional Chinese medicine is rather slow. Thirdly, traditional Chinese medicine has been subjected to the lack of protection system in intellectual property rights, the original and innovative knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine faces a greater risk of loss, and the evidence of clinical efficacy of Chinese medicine remains to be further proved. Globally speaking, traditional Chinese medicine still faces multiple barriers in many aspects including culture, science, economy and politics. The innovative development of traditional Chinese medicine requires us to cherish civilization roots, draw on other civilizations, and be forward-thinking.