Author: Han Deqiang (Renowned Chinese Economist)

In late November last year, while I was giving a lecture in Guilin, I received two consecutive phone calls informing me that Professor Yang Deming had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and asking if there was anything that could be done. My first thought was to find a good traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner. Upon returning to Beijing, Professor Yang was still undergoing chemotherapy at Peking University Hospital. After more than a month of chemotherapy, he had spent over 60,000 yuan and was reduced to skin and bones. According to the doctors, the chemotherapy had slowed the progression of the disease, but he had at most three to five months left. Fortunately, Professor Yang was still mentally clear, and I strongly recommended that he try TCM treatment, which he gladly agreed to. However, Peking University Hospital refused to allow TCM treatment on their premises, and Professor Yang hesitated for a while. Later, a friend from the TCM Strategy Research Group at the Ministry of Science and Technology recommended Dr. Wang Wenkui, and it was finally decided to transfer Professor Yang out of Peking University Hospital to receive TCM treatment exclusively. More than a month later, I received a call from Professor Yang at home. He excitedly told me that the latest test results of his pleural effusion showed that the cancer cells in the fluid had disappeared, whereas the density of cancer cells had been very high in previous tests at Peking University Hospital. Now, he could eat, his sleep had improved, and his overall mental state was much better. This good news quickly spread among friends, with one commenting that it seemed accepting TCM treatment had been a strategic turning point.

Why do I have such a strong preference for TCM? It began five years ago when my mother passed away from stomach cancer. Her cancer was discovered very late, and multiple endoscopies had mistakenly identified it as general gastritis. It was only during her final endoscopy, from Shaoxing to Beijing, that cancer cells were found. A doctor at Beijing Cancer Hospital believed surgery was possible, but upon opening her up, they found the cancer had widely metastasized and could only close her up and wait for death. During this time, I witnessed my mother's immense suffering and fell into deep reflection. Why must Western medicine find cancer cells to diagnose the disease? How did Western medicine diagnose cancer before the advent of endoscopy? Without diagnosis, how could treatment be administered? What did people in ancient and modern Western societies do when they fell ill?

Thus, I gradually realized that the progress of Western medicine in the 20th century was primarily in diagnostic techniques. However, strictly speaking, this progress was in optical, mechanical, and electrical technologies, not in medicine itself. For example, a capsule endoscope is a small device similar to a cold capsule, essentially a miniature camera with its own light source that captures images of the inside of the small intestine and transmits them via radio waves to an external receiver, which then processes the signals through a computer. Is this progress in medicine or in optical, mechanical, and electrical technologies? The most advanced diagnostic equipment in large hospitals, such as CT scans, color ultrasounds, and MRIs, are all advancements in optical, mechanical, and electrical technologies. Of course, these technologies are not only used in diagnosis but also in treatment. I have a friend in computer science who invented an electrochemical cancer treatment device. At the time, I was amazed—how could someone with no medical background invent a device to treat cancer? Now I understand that treating cancer does not require understanding the cause of the disease, i.e., it does not require medical knowledge, as long as one can find a technological means to kill cancer cells. I believe those who invented X-rays, CT scans, colonoscopes, and endoscopes did not understand the complexity of the human body and merely saw it as a machine composed of countless parts. Using X-rays on the human body is like customs using ultrasound to detect smuggled goods in containers.

The second most impressive achievement of Western medicine is surgical procedures.In the 20th century, surgery made significant progress in understanding the intricate structures of the human body, such as bones, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and various organs. However, the conceptual understanding of the human body remained rooted in the 19th-century anatomical view, which regarded the body as a static, complex machine. This perspective lacked any comprehension of the intricate interrelationships within the body. For instance, prolonged depression can lead to gastric ulcers or even stomach cancer, but can surgical techniques reveal this connection at any given moment? Surgeons can only observe the state of the body at a specific moment, and strictly speaking, not even that moment, as opening the body inevitably alters its internal conditions. To use an analogy, the human body is like a wondrous, ever-flowing river, and surgeons cannot step into the same river twice. If they do, the river will inevitably change. Thus, advancements in surgical technology can only address instantaneous, localized issues like fractures. Some might argue that surgery is effective for long-term, accumulated organic diseases, such as coronary artery bypass or kidney transplants. But if we could understand the mechanisms behind the development and progression of these diseases and intervene to halt or even reverse the process, why resort to surgery? After all, surgery does not eliminate the root causes of organic diseases. Removing part of the stomach may only lead to problems in another part. Replacing one kidney may result in the failure of the other. Is the overuse of surgical techniques a blessing or a curse for patients? Take, for example, Professor Yang’s lung cancer. If there were drugs that could transform cancer cells back into normal cells, why resort to surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation? Is medicine only about cutting with a scalpel, or is it about diagnosing the root causes and mechanisms of disease and mobilizing the body’s own immune system, as in traditional Chinese medicine?

The third remarkable achievement of Western medicine is antibiotics. Today, through colonoscopies, gastroscopies, CT scans, and MRIs, diagnoses are made, such as identifying inflammation in the colon. Why does inflammation occur? According to traditional Chinese medicine, inflammation is merely a result of an imbalance in the body’s internal and external environment. By restoring balance—balancing yin and yang, cold and heat, deficiency and excess—the inflammation naturally subsides. The problem may manifest locally, but its cause may lie in the whole. The issue may appear in the colon, but the root may be in the spleen and stomach. This is a holistic view of the cause-and-effect relationship of disease. In contrast, the reductionist perspective of Western medicine holds that colon inflammation must be caused by a specific bacterium, and finding an antibiotic that targets that bacterium will eliminate the inflammation. Guided by this theory, Western medicine developed countless antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs in the 20th century. Today, antibiotics account for about 40-50% of hospital drug sales. How do we know if a drug can kill a specific bacterium? Chemical drugs are tested on mice. Since both humans and mice are composed of cells, a drug that kills bacteria in mice should work in humans. But what if no specific chemical drug is found? The patient must wait for the latest experimental results. In fact, to my knowledge, Western medicine has yet to find a specific antibiotic for colitis. Broad-spectrum antibiotics may provide temporary relief, but the condition often returns once the medication stops. Furthermore, even if a specific antibiotic is found, side effects are inevitable. The human body is a complex ecosystem of millions of bacteria, and while antibiotics kill pathogenic bacteria, they also destroy beneficial bacteria, disrupting the body’s delicate conversion and synthesis mechanisms and causing widespread side effects. An even more troubling issue is the "game" between bacteria and antibiotics. Many are familiar with the story of bollworms and pesticides.Some bollworms were killed, while others with resistance to pesticides survived and continued to reproduce, necessitating the development of new pesticides. This mechanism forced China's cotton-producing regions to shift from the North China Plain to the Xinjiang region, as bollworms in areas like Shandong had developed resistance, whereas those in Xinjiang had not. Similarly, some pathogenic bacteria are killed by antibiotics, while others with drug resistance emerge, requiring the development of new antibiotics. Thus, I believe that the third major achievement—the development of a wide variety of antibiotics—is actually a progress in chemistry rather than medicine. The advancement of chemistry is also reflected in testing technologies, where the analysis of various human body fluids such as urine, blood, and saliva helps determine normal and abnormal values in the human body.

In summary, the achievements of 20th-century Western medicine were primarily made possible by technological advancements in optics, machinery, electricity, chemistry, and biology. However, in terms of medical philosophy, it remained rooted in the 19th-century concepts of atomism and mechanism, leaving it ignorant of the holistic and dynamic nature of the human body and ineffective in addressing complex diseases. In contrast, ancient Chinese medicine, lacking such technological tools, adopted a holistic and dynamic philosophical view of the human body, enabling it to explain the causes and mechanisms of diseases and develop corresponding treatments and medicines capable of curing complex illnesses. In fact, my own colitis was cured by traditional Chinese medicine. When exactly was it cured? What medicine was used? I do not know. I only know that after taking Chinese herbal medicine for a period, a follow-up colonoscopy showed no signs of inflammation. A friend, after hearing my views on Chinese and Western medicine, shared a story about his wife. Ten years ago, his wife was diagnosed with cancer, and Western doctors told her to eat whatever she wanted. Desperate, my friend sought help from Dr. Shi Hanzhang at Dongzhimen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The patient, having lost hope, did not go to the hospital. Based solely on a description of her symptoms, Dr. Shi prescribed a treatment. Over a month later, her condition significantly improved. Today, his wife is still alive and well. Last Spring Festival, our families even had a meal together. Once I recognized the philosophical differences between Chinese and Western medicine regarding the human body, I developed a deep interest in traditional Chinese medicine.

I will forever regret that when my mother fell ill, I did not yet understand the comparative strengths and weaknesses of Chinese and Western medicine. Like most people, I blindly trusted Western medicine. If Western medicine pronounced a death sentence, it was as if science itself was pronouncing it. Now I realize that such a pronouncement often reflects the limitations of Western medicine and the flaws in its philosophical understanding of the human body. I even believe that Western medicine, under the influence of its flawed human body philosophy, is moving from one error to a deeper one, as seen in its progression from cell biology (which gave rise to antibiotics) to genetic biology (searching for criminal and disease genes) and then to molecular biology. This is a continuation of Western medicine's atomistic thinking. If the cause of a disease cannot be found at the cellular level, it is sought at the genetic level; if not there, then at the protein level. This approach may fundamentally reverse the cause-and-effect relationship of diseases. Today, medical students regard molecular biology as the pinnacle of future medicine, and even some students of traditional Chinese medicine share this view, which is deeply concerning. Such an education risks bringing students closer to single-cell life while distancing them from the human body. To some extent, I believe Marx's theory also exhibits a strong atomistic tendency. The idea that the economic base determines the superstructure parallels the notion in the human body that cells determine the whole, genes determine the whole, and ultimately molecules and atoms determine the whole. I contend that his theory does not adequately explain social movements. In New China, atomistic thinking was largely disseminated through Marxism.What worries me more is that such a naive, atomistic, and mechanistic philosophy of the human body has come to dominate the global medical community. Western medicine declares itself as the only scientific approach, stifling other traditional medical practices guided by holistic and dynamic philosophies of the human body, particularly targeting Chinese medicine. If a patient dies under Western medical treatment, it is deemed the patient's fate; if a patient dies under Chinese medical treatment, it is labeled a medical accident. If a patient recovers under Western medical treatment, it is hailed as the result of Western medicine's scientific and inevitable efficacy; if a patient recovers under Chinese medical treatment, it is dismissed as a coincidental, unscientific, and unrepeatable miracle.

Even more troubling is that even when Chinese medicine can repeatedly treat diseases according to Western medical statistical standards, Western medicine arrogantly refuses to acknowledge it. During the SARS outbreak in Guangzhou in 2003, a combination of Chinese and Western medicine was widely used, with remarkably effective results. By mid-May 2003, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine had treated over 50 patients, with no fatalities, an average fever reduction time of three days, and no infections among medical staff. In contrast, the Western medicine-based hospital led by Academician Zhong Nanshan treated 117 patients, with 10 deaths; among these, 71 patients received integrated Chinese medicine treatment, with only one death. In other words, among the 46 patients who received purely Western medical treatment at the hospital led by Zhong Nanshan, hailed as the "hero of the fight against SARS," nine died. It is also worth noting that patients treated with Chinese medicine had no sequelae, while those treated with Western medicine often suffered from pulmonary fibrosis and femoral head necrosis. The cost comparison is also stark. Beijing's Xiaotangshan Hospital, which relied on Western medicine, mobilized ventilators from across Asia, each of which was incinerated after use, costing tens of thousands of yuan per patient. Initially, the success of Chinese medicine in treating SARS in Guangzhou should have been promoted in Beijing. However, after SARS was classified as an infectious disease, patients were required to be treated only in designated infectious disease hospitals, and Beijing's Chinese medicine hospitals were no longer allowed to treat patients. No leader of a Chinese medicine hospital dared to guarantee that Chinese medicine would not result in deaths. While Western medicine is allowed to cause numerous deaths, even a single death under Chinese medicine is considered a medical accident. According to Western medical theory, treating SARS requires the development of a specific antibiotic. Yet, even in the absence of such an antibiotic, certain authorities still only permit Western medicine to treat SARS, which is deeply perplexing.

This even leads me to angrily draw a parallel: just as Falun Gong forbids its followers from seeking hospital treatment when ill, Western medicine forbids patients from seeking Chinese medicine when Western medicine fails; Falun Gong can declare a follower's death as ascension in the name of faith, while Western medicine can declare a patient's death as fate in the name of science. Why are these two logics so strikingly similar? Are we all followers of Western medicine? Are we all hostages to Western medicine? Who handed over our right to life to Western medicine? Falun Gong followers at least have a choice, but most of us are born with no alternative, naturally becoming followers of Western medicine?

Yesterday, I recommended Dr. Wang Wenkui to a friend over the phone. This friend's father had pneumonia and was being treated at Peking University Hospital. While the pneumonia had improved, other organs began to fail. As the call was ending, I suddenly realized that there is indeed a widespread superstition surrounding Western medicine. If children suggest that their parents try Chinese medicine, both the parents and relatives might privately consider the children unfilial. How tragic! How regrettable!

Why has Chinese medicine fallen to such a state? The immediate reason is that there are few skilled practitioners and many mediocre ones in Chinese medicine. A single prescription may contain dozens of herbs, like a shotgun blast aimed at sparrows—imprecise, but bound to hit something effective.Some patients also believe in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), especially in small and medium-sized cities and rural areas. Due to the lower cost of TCM treatment and less influence from the Western medicine-dominated mindset prevalent in large cities, they seek TCM practitioners. However, they often end up consulting quacks. While these quacks may not immediately kill the patient, they also fail to cure the illness. Over time, patients lose confidence in TCM and turn to Western medicine for surgeries and other "violent revolutions."

But why are there so many quacks? This is related to the Westernization of TCM education. TCM relies on mentorship because it deals with a complex system of contradictions, where numerous layers of conflicts interact—primary (system-level), secondary (organ-level), tertiary (tissue-level), and quaternary (cellular-level). Within each level, there are further layers of primary and secondary contradictions. While resolving each pair of contradictions individually is relatively straightforward and follows certain rules, the interaction of different contradictions across levels requires a nuanced approach. A single principle is insufficient, and multiple principles in conflict may seem to nullify each other. Thus, balance and coordination among principles are needed, identifying primary and secondary principles and clarifying the relationship between yin and yang. Each patient's condition is unique, meaning the organization of contradictions differs. The same symptoms may stem from entirely different causes, and the same cause may manifest in entirely different ways and locations. Therefore, training a TCM practitioner is akin to training a national premier, requiring both clinical practice and mentorship. This is why there is a saying, "If not a good statesman, then a good doctor." TCM emphasizes the combination of herbs in a "monarch, minister, assistant, and envoy" framework: the monarch herb targets the primary contradiction, the minister herb strengthens the monarch, the assistant herb addresses secondary contradictions and mitigates the monarch's side effects, and the envoy herb harmonizes the formula. This is like reorganizing a mismanaged company: not only must the leadership be replaced, morale boosted, market strategies adjusted, new products developed, and quality control strengthened, but the process must also be gradual to prevent chaos, loss of funds, clients, and technology. In other words, one must know how to reassure people, targeting a few while protecting the majority. Thus, purely academic TCM training can only produce mid-level cadres capable of solving single-type problems, not a premier. These mid-level cadres are the TCM practitioners who rely on one or two formulas for their entire careers. Such practitioners wait for cases that fit their formulas; if the illness matches, they become "miracle doctors," but if not, they become quacks. From an external statistical perspective, patients conclude that these are quacks. A true skilled doctor adapts flexibly, achieving miraculous results. For example, in 1957, during a Beijing epidemic of encephalitis B, the renowned doctor Pu Fuzhou treated 167 cases using 98 different prescriptions. However, the Western medicine-led Ministry of Health argued that since each prescription solved fewer than two cases, Pu's skills lacked statistical significance! Using such a mechanistic Western approach to evaluate TCM's holistic philosophy is as absurd as having a child judge an adult's behavior.

The result of reforming TCM using Western models is that, by some estimates, the number of skilled TCM practitioners in China has dropped from around 5,000 at the time of liberation to about 500 today. Even more perplexing is that, according to the Ministry of Health's "Practicing Physician Law," those TCM doctors without formal education or foreign language skills but with long-standing practice and excellent reputations are denied licensing. Dr. Wang Wenkui, mentioned multiple times in this article, strictly speaking, does not have a Ministry of Health-recognized medical license. Isn't practice supposed to be the sole criterion for testing truth? Why, when it comes to medicine, is Western medicine considered the embodiment of science and truth, qualified to negate other medical systems?

In fact, Western medicine only acknowledges atomistic, mechanistic science—the science of the Newtonian era. Unfortunately, while Newtonian mechanics ushered in a new era of physics, its influence has been overextended.A step forward from truth becomes fallacy. Since the birth of Newtonian mechanics, the Western intellectual and medical communities have been captivated by it. Thinkers like Locke and Smith, and to some extent Hegel and Marx, were deeply influenced by Newtonian mechanics. However, Newtonian mechanics is only suitable for a deterministic, reversible, mechanical, divisible, and isolated (atomistic) macroscopic physical world. The development of Western natural science quickly transcended the Newtonian world. The discoveries of thermodynamics, chemistry, biological evolution, quantum mechanics, and relativity shattered this deterministic, reversible world, presenting us with a highly complex, irreversible, and contingent world. Yet, the Western medical community remains entirely isolated from these changes in natural science, stuck in the era of Newtonian mechanics. Therefore, the great scientist Qian Xuesen, who worked on systems theory and cybernetics, once remarked (in essence): Western medicine is in its infancy; it will take another four to five hundred years to enter the realm of systems theory, and another four to five hundred years to reach the holistic theory of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

However, although TCM and Chinese traditional culture may far surpass the West in understanding the human body and society, modern China was defeated by the powerful ships and cannons armed with Newtonian thought. Originally, learning the advanced techniques of foreigners to counter them, with "Chinese learning as the foundation and Western learning for practical use," could have resolved China's issues in science and technology. However, due to the rule of "quack doctors" like Empress Dowager Cixi, who lacked the "foundation of Chinese learning," China suffered another defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. Public opinion, unable to distinguish between "quack doctors" and "good doctors," abandoned "Chinese learning" and embraced a wave of complete Westernization. After the Xinhai Revolution, the Beiyang government, citing the difficulty of integrating Chinese and Western medicine, "decided to abolish TCM and discontinue the use of Chinese medicine." In 1929, the Nanjing government, arguing that "as long as old medicine exists, the people's thoughts will not change, new medical practices will not advance, and public health administration will not progress," passed the "Abolition of Old Medicine Act." Although these measures faced strong public opposition and were eventually abandoned, they dealt a severe blow to TCM. After liberation, despite Mao Zedong's advocacy for the integration of Chinese and Western medicine, the Ministry of Health was dominated by Western medicine, resulting in a combination where Western medicine was primary and TCM secondary, relegating TCM to a second-class status. In the 1980s, the wave of complete Westernization resurfaced, further downgrading TCM from second-class to third-class status, even facing the risk of extinction.

In reality, true integration of Chinese and Western medicine can only be achieved with "TCM as the primary and Western medicine as the supplementary." TCM can prevent diseases at their early stages, eliminating most illnesses in their nascent or developing phases. Only when the disease progresses to a completely irreversible stage should Western medicine's "violent revolution" be employed. The determination of what constitutes a completely irreversible condition depends on the level of TCM treatment. For physicians like Wang Wenkui, even advanced lung cancer can be reversed. For less skilled TCM practitioners (still good doctors, but with slightly lower medical expertise), early and mid-stage lung cancer can be reversed. This could form a network of TCM practitioners, with a few outstanding doctors and many competent ones, covering urban and rural areas at a cost far lower than that of Western medicine.

Misery loves company, and like recognizes like. In the medical field, TCM is non-mainstream. In the field of economics, I am also non-mainstream. The experience of being non-mainstream is similar. In economics, a Ph.D. in economics with a background in mathematics, despite knowing nothing about economic history and understanding little about the complexity of economy and society, can manipulate statistical data to create models, publish articles in international academic journals, and use the reputation gained from these publications to influence economic policy. This is akin to a medical doctor trained in molecular biology arbitrarily treating a patient.The economy was ruined, patients were killed, yet they are the embodiment of science and bear no responsibility, blaming the patients for not being their typical cases.

Alas! It would be better to return and study traditional Chinese medicine.

Source: http:/ / bbs7. xilu. com/ cgi- bin……view? forum=qihuang& message=6