Sceptics of China’s TCM Covid-19 remedy Lianhua Qingwen face online attacks
- Complaints lodged after Chinese health platform publishes an article saying the traditional medicine has no effect in preventing infection
- A leading Chinese neurologist is also criticised for post saying ‘unproven’ treatments inappropriate in pandemic fight
After publishing an article that said Lianhua Qingwen had no effect in preventing Covid-19 and that its distribution would strain logistics capacities, the Chinese health platform DXY received more than 33,000 comments on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.
“[TCM] affects your interests. You have been discrediting TCM since your establishment so as to open up the domestic [Chinese] market for your foreign capital [investors],” said one comment with 1,432 likes.
Shijiazhuang Yiling Pharmaceutical, the manufacturer of Lianhua Qingwen, said on Wednesday that Lianhua Qingwen had been recommended for treatment of Covid-19.
“Since the pandemic outbreak, the National Medical Products Administration approved Lianhua Qingwen for the treatment of Covid-19 [symptoms], including fever, cough and malaise caused by the disease,” the company said, according to the online news service Hongxing News, also known as Red Star News.
The company also rebutted claims that the treatment was developed hastily, in just 15 days.
But for many people in China, the debate over traditional Chinese medicine is not a scientific issue but a political one, and it comes as opinions on domestic and international issues have become increasingly polarised.
Gu Su, a political scientist at Nanjing University, said some of the vocal critics had turned scientific discussions into an ideological war of words.
“To disapprove of traditional Chinese medicine is seen as a betrayal of the country and those people are Washington’s lackey,” he said. “Those people take a similar stand on almost everything … Now we have many such polarised issues, domestically and internationally.”
How traditional Chinese medicine – TCM – is used to treat Covid-19
Gu said the critics firmly believed they were patriotic and in line with the dominant ideology, so “they would attack other people assuredly”.
Chinese leaders are in favour of traditional Chinese medicine, and Beijing has been keen to present it as an effective treatment for Covid-19, as well as to export it to other countries as part of its soft power efforts.
In 2019, President Xi Jinping described TCM as a “treasure” of Chinese civilisation that would help in the “rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation”. A year later, he called for Covid-19 patients to be given both Chinese and Western medicine. He has also been quoted as saying: “I myself like Chinese medicine a lot.”
Still, some Weibo users called for rational discussions over its use.
“I hope more people can understand that TCM is traditional medicine and we should believe in modern medicine … even though there is still little that modern medicine can do,” a Weibo user said.
“It is a scientific issue, not a matter of national sentiment or a political issue.”
Additional reporting by Jun Mai
