It’s probably just the usual thing the west does, as western systems and social safety nets collapse (healthcare, in this case) they need to distract the population, so they go for the tried and tested “Sure, things are bad, but Bad Guy Country is worse!”

Honestly traditional Chinese medicine isn’t even unscientific. Just because something doesn’t look exactly like western medicine doesn’t make it pseudoscience. Herbalism is scientifically backed, and can be a better solution to some things than prescription drugs. As it has less risk of side effects. Anyone who has ever put Aloe Vera on a sunburn knows how good herbalism can be.

It is actually a known issue though that rural areas in China still lack access to medical care, and the government is making a big push to fix this. China has gone from a fully agrarian country to what they are now in a generation. They’re not done building out their infrastucture yet. The CPC has been making rural revitalization a big focus of their current efforts. Because they recognize there is still work to be done there. Which a big part of that is building the proper healthcare facilities.

I imagine the west is using this to try and critisize China. Without mentioning they’re actively fixing the issue.

I’m not fully versed on TCM but as chinese diaspora/being casually exposed to parts of it, I know it’s some serious stuff (as in, definitely has effects. that I have personally experienced…) and it’s not “Just” “traditional” (connotation: some ancient rites that have never changed or evolved in use/practice). Also my layman understanding is that TCM and general culture regarding health/healthcare is that TCM is more preventative in nature, while attitudes about western (“modern”) medicine is that it’s for ailments/conditions that require immediate attention or reactive in nature… Additionally it’s important to note that TCM and western medicine aren’t in conflict, or at least it’s discouraged for people to believe that TCM is superior or should be the sole mode of healthcare to follow, if that makes sense (I have to note this because in the west I believe it’s very common for pseudoscientific/cultish “alternative medicine” to purport that all of modern medicine is bogus or unreliable while their alternative practice is superior).

Also I don’t have links on hand but iirc there have been modern scientific medical research into aspects of TCM, such as acupuncture being better than placebo for specific conditions… oh, and my personal observation that dermarolling and microneedling have an odd resemblance to guasha (tho I also see influencers/beauty bloggers telling people to use both/all. two comments: beauty industry has been ramping into skincare/dermatology territory for a while now… also the facial version of guasha popularized by beauty industry/influencers both eastern and western is Different from TCM guasha, which leaves marks that should fade relatively quickly).

Lastly I’ll die on this hill: TCM is [mostly]* real medicine while chiropractice is full-on quackery. *moxibustion spooks me and I have the least confidence about that. also cupping

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writing this post made me actually look up cupping, even if only briefly, which I thought was a TCM-only thing, but I learned that cupping and different variants are used in health practices associated with other non-sinosphere cultures, specifically wet cupping which I had never heard of until today. also learned that cupping wasn’t prevalent in TCM until 1950s ??

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//not really TCM related but recently I saw a post floating on rednote that was like “[foreign visitor posting]: I noticed yall don’t really use pain medications even ibuprofen, what’s up with that” and many cn responses being something to the tune of “don’t need to mask the pain in order to keep going, we try to find and treat the cause not the symptom eg pain. only use pain medications when it’s very hard/impossible to cure the cause such as chronic conditions”

I wonder sometimes if Western info-warfare strategy is shifting to “flooding the zone”, producing such an avalanche of dubious quality media on China that no accurate picture of successes can be easily accessed by the Western lay audiences

A Western “great firewall” may take on a quite different form to what we have seen in China in the last few decades for example, given the aesthetic concessions required to maintain illusions of liberalism in the popular consciousness

I expect some mixture of legalism, as we observe regarding proscribed organisations in the UK, and systematic covert as well as overt online misinformation

This doesn’t directly address your points on traditional medicine, but I certainly agree that it is a worthwhile topic

Im sure they mix some traditionsl elements into it and it’s fine, i heard from some mexicans talking about their experiences in healthcare in China and one mentioned getting treated for s broken foot finger or something and being surprised about the treatment but it worked nonetheless, i don’t exactly remember what the treatment was but it worked i guess, also remember the guy saying that the doctor told him “im not treating your symptoms, but directly fixing the problem”. This is an anecdote so it should be taken with s grain of salt.

I imagine that with the scale of China, doctors are fundamentally trained differently than in western nations and have to be more efficient with medicine in contrast. There is also the inherent incentive in western nations for doctors to prescribe more drugs in order to make more profit, even though it may not be needed. I personally have an issue with medicine in the US because a relative got a > $1000 bill for literally just filling a form in the hospital, they didnt even get treated since they left because the hospital was to goddamn slow.

Ultimately, many drug compounds come from stuff that can be naturally found, so why should one take a pill of X compound if it was proven to be found in a tea of X herb? Having it in a pill form doesn’t make it more “scientific”.