The Decline of Traditional Chinese Medicine Is Already Irreversible
The decline of traditional Chinese medicine is already irreversible. Many TCM fans think that traditional Chinese medicine is still preserved in Japan, but in fact the once-splendid streets of Japanese kampo medicine have today become pure tourist attractions. Ever since Western medicine entered Japan, Chinese medicine there has steadily waned, until it is nearly extinct; only Chinese materia medica is still being studied. "Discard the medicine, keep the drugs" (fei-yi-cun-yao) has become a fact in Japan.
At present, the number of newly registered TCM physicians in China is decreasing every year, and the decline is steep; among those who successfully register, not many still actually practice TCM. The disappearance of traditional Chinese medicine in China is only a matter of time, and this trend cannot be reversed. This is also a matter of deep grief to the TCM community.
Chinese medicine will ultimately attach itself to modern medicine and continue to exist as a small branch of it. The essential part of Chinese materia medica will be preserved, while some of the questionable theoretical systems of traditional Chinese medicine will be re-examined. Both doctors and patients hope that the efficacy of a treatment or a drug is 100%, but the general efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine is low, hardly exceeding 30%; compared with modern medicine, this effective rate is hard to be satisfied with. Some die-hard TCM fans argue that Chinese medicine cannot be modernized, but in fact the work of people like Tu Youyou is enormously meaningful: she raised the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine against malaria from under 30% to 100%. The artemisinin she invented has saved, and will in the future continue to save, countless malaria patients, as it has in the past and present.
Therefore, re-researching Chinese medicine and raising its clinical efficacy is the only way out. Many of TCM's foundational theories are wrong; without the courage to admit this, without discovering the errors in its foundational theory, and without the ability to innovate TCM theory and raise its clinical efficacy, Chinese medicine will truly die.
Improving TCM theory and clinical techniques has major social significance, but this improvement should be built on a deep understanding of traditional TCM theory. I do not believe that loving Chinese medicine means one must defend everything about ancient Chinese medicine. When reading traditional TCM literature, one should read with a skeptical spirit—critically inheriting Chinese medicine rather than swallowing it whole.
Chinese medicine needs a generation of successors who carry forward the past and open the way ahead, not conformists who rigidly stick to the rules. Humanity faces ever more threats from disease; Chinese medicine can play a very good role in human health, and achieving this better effect depends precisely on generation after generation of TCM physicians and researchers bringing forth the new from the old and further advancing TCM theory and practical skills. Only thus can Chinese medicine survive and develop in an ever more complex medical environment.