https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9414-6240
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ABSTRACT
The legitimation of Chinese medicine has long been a politically and morally charged subject in China since the early twentieth century. In recent years, there is an apparent surge of enthusiasm in developing and promoting Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), as evidenced by the state's frequent lauding of its advantages and the implementation of a series of supportive policies and regulations. During the Covid-19 pandemic in China, TCM has again gained ample attention in major state-owned media outlets due to its proclaimed effects in treating Covid-19. In this article, I will conduct an interdisciplinary study of the semiotic work dedicated to legitimating TCM treatment of Covid-19 in the social media account of an official TCM institution. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and textual analysis supported by reference to history and anthropology of medicine, I will examine closely how the above-mentioned semiotic work is achieved through reference to a range of theoretical and moral arguments. Moreover, the paradoxes and inconsistencies in this process of semiotic construction will be discussed to shed light on the deeper issues concerning the entangled relationship of health science and politics in China, as well as the epistemological difficulties in promoting TCM inside and outside China.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 However, there are several articles which conduct semiotic studies of discourses and narratives on mask-wearing and Covid-19 in China (Han Citation2020; Ji Citation2020; Peng Citation2020). My study seeks to complement their perspectives by focusing on TCM, another timely topic to examine the entangled relationship of health science and politics in China.
3 Though studies on commercial advertising of medical or health-related companies on Chinese social media have emerged recently (see Luo, Zayts, and Shipman Citation2020; Zhou Citation2020), there is scarce study on promotion discourses produced by state-run medical institutions on Chinese social media.
4 According to my personal communication with Mr You, the director of a TCM hospital in Zhejiang province, during my field work on cancer patients and TCM treatment options in 2018, CTCM was widely subscribed to among his colleagues, contacts and patients. Similar observations were shared by my other contacts who work in the TCM profession in Jiangxi province.
5 It is a common practice for institutional WeChat accounts to repost publications from other sources. As the official account of NATCM, a state administration, CTCM in reposting articles on its account can be seen to be endorsing and promoting these articles. Therefore, for the purpose of this project, I do not distinguish the original and reposted articles in the corpus since all of them constitute CTCM's semiotic work dedicated to legitimizing TCM's treatment of Covid-19.
6 A quotation from 素问 (Basic Questions), first of the two books in 黄帝内经 (The Yellow Emperor's Inner Cannon), a classical medical book.
7 Zhang Zhongjing (150–219) is one of the most eminent physicians of traditional Chinese medicine during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
8 Hanbi,Cold syndrome. Patients suffering from this may suddenly faint and become unconscious. See https://lib-nt2.hkbu.edu.hk/database/cmed/cmfid/details.asp?lang=cht&id=F00101.
10 Due to limited space, I cannot elaborate here. For further details see Liu (Citation2019).
11 Qigong is a set of ancient body training exercises discovered by Communist cadres in the 1940s, which then went on to expand to all over China. Highly politicized since the very beginning, qigong, at its peak moment, was taken as “Chinese science” which holds the key to “controlling the invisible forces of the universe,” therefore can save China and the world (Palmer Citation2007, 118).
12 Amazing China (厉害了我的国) is a documentary directed by Wei Tie in 2018. It displays China's achievements in various domains since 2012.
13 Year Hare Affair (那年那兔那些事) is a webcomic by Lin Chao published in 2011. It uses anthropomorphic animals to narrate twentieth-century political, military and diplomatic events.
16 See the threads on a popular platform as an example, https://www.zhihu.com/question/395777438.
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Notes on contributors
Feifei Zhou
Dr Feifei Zhou is an Assistant Professor working in the Department of English at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Her research interests include theories of language and communication, linguistic landscapes and health communication. Dr Zhou's research monograph Models of the Human in Twentieth-century Linguistics: System, Order, Creativity was published by Springer in 2020.