Rebirth 1977 Great Era

Chapter 1170 Silent Battlefield: Taking the Initiative, Building a Three-Line Wall to Defend Against the Wolves (Bonus Chapter for Monthly Tickets)

After Fang Yan resolved Ma Wenying and the others' problems, he resumed his work.

Today is July 15th, and half of the month has already passed. He must finish the work on the ancient books from Nanyang before August 1st. Although he only spent one day in Guangzhou to finish it, the subsequent revisions took a considerable amount of time.

This time it's a similar situation. Although it should be quite fast once we get everyone together, the writing process will still take time. The key issue is whether the professors will all go to grade the papers and hold a meeting after they finish proctoring the exam.

If that's the case, dialects will have to wait a long time to be restored.

He had already thought it through. He would start by doing it himself, breaking down the framework, assigning responsibilities to each person, and then waiting for them to complete their assigned tasks. He could do this himself without any problems, but Fang Yan wanted the senior professors to enjoy the same treatment as the senior professors at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine.

In addition, with more people, we can make it before August 1st and present it as a gift on August 1st, which will attract more attention.

That's just how things are; changing the location or the time can have completely different effects.

If we want to revive traditional Chinese medicine, we need to focus on these areas, even if it's for practical reasons.

At least there's still a chance to gain something, instead of waiting until you're attacked and have no chance left.

As the time for reform and opening up approaches, it presents both opportunities and crises. Once foreign capital enters the market, the pressure will undoubtedly increase dramatically. What can be accomplished with a single sentence now may require lengthy meetings and wrangling due to various interests.

In my past life, I heard a professor talk about how, right after the reform and opening up, foreign Western medical capital entered the market and used a series of combined tactics to completely overwhelm traditional Chinese medicine.

At that time, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners were basically powerless to fight back and had no idea how the other side would make its move.

They didn't even realize that the other party was attacking them.

Later, Fang Yan himself researched a lot of information and summarized his initial methods, which were not very sophisticated. At the beginning, he promoted the "scientific nature of modern medicine" through the media and denigrated traditional Chinese medicine as "unscientific empirical medicine".

For example, there is a lack of laboratory evidence to support the theories of meridians and yin and yang in traditional Chinese medicine, and a lack of "double-blind" experimental data on the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine.

This was all prepared in advance.

Yu Yunxiu's theory, for example, can be directly applied.

In addition, there are some people who are biased from the start, such as Director Sun. You can tell from his dialect that the harsh terms in the original responsibility agreement, such as technical accountability, actually implied a natural distrust of the achievements of traditional Chinese medicine. These people are likely to use "scientific standards" to make things difficult for their team in the future.

It's just that Director Liao and his team are holding things up for now; their time hasn't come yet.

In addition to this, international pharmaceutical companies have historically lobbied governments to promote Western-dominated medical standards, such as requiring traditional Chinese medicine to undergo toxicology testing according to Western medicine procedures (which is costly); and restricting the scope of traditional Chinese medicine practice (such as prohibiting acupuncturists from practicing independently).
The implementation of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) in China in the 90s led to the closure of many small and medium-sized Chinese medicine factories due to the cost of renovation.

Then comes the competition for talent. Foreign hospitals and pharmaceutical companies will poach elites from TCM colleges with high salaries, leading to a talent gap in TCM. Vice Minister Qiu has also obstructed the transfer of personnel from Fangyan. If the situation in the Ministry of Health changes in the future, he will most likely do the same as in the past and condone the poaching of experts by foreign companies.

In addition, there is the issue of intellectual property erosion, which has been mentioned many times. Multinational corporations acquire traditional Chinese medicine formulas at low prices and then sell them back through patent barriers.

They use your prescriptions, make money off you, and then destroy your traditional Chinese medicine system. They've become very adept at playing this game of capital.

Fangyan is currently doing a variety of things, but the general direction is threefold: consolidating academic discourse power, building a talent moat, and creating patent and technological barriers.

Take the most recent example: he wanted to release his findings before August 1st to establish academic authority with official endorsement, so that he could refute accusations of being "unscientific" in the future.

The military is using mine; so many soldiers have used it and it's effective. You're saying it's useless? Go talk to the bullets!
In addition, he is also promoting international standards and using global market cooperation to export international standards for traditional Chinese medicine. As long as he earns foreign exchange, he can also force domestic acceptance.

You've already taken the money, and now the channels are generating so much profit every year, and you're even able to expand production, allowing medicinal herb production bases, local farmers, and governments to all benefit, creating a virtuous cycle. The more people you've bound together, the more difficult it will be for capital, whether from local or higher levels, to come in and cause trouble.

They are not dialect speakers and cannot foresee the course of history at a glance. They will also test the waters. If they find that the situation in the Chinese market is different from what they expected and the input and output are not proportional, they will not choose to keep attacking. Instead, they will most likely choose peaceful coexistence, or even invest in joint development, and make money together, just like Japan.

Therefore, the two clubs that Fangyan had previously established were actually for the purpose of developing a talent pool. Through project plans, everyone could get paid, and by binding interests together, they could retain top experts and resist foreign companies poaching them.

In addition, with the support of Director Liao and Vice Minister Li, he can promote preferential policies for traditional Chinese medicine. Nowadays, many things can be approved by leaders simply by speaking in dialect, unless it is a very big matter that requires a meeting.

Furthermore, Fangyan International is also having people register patents for ancient prescriptions. They are applying for international patents for the restoration of prescriptions from ancient books. They have even abandoned all moral principles and started to register the prescriptions that Japanese Kampo medicine companies developed in the new century ahead of time.

You steal from my ancient past, I'll steal from your future. You do the first day of the month, I'll do the fifteenth. There's no psychological pressure, and of course, nobody knows this is from the future.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hu and Mr. Huo are also pursuing the luxury route of traditional Chinese medicine, focusing on the irreproducibility of craftsmanship, making high-end customized medicines and emphasizing "handmade ancient methods", avoiding standardized competition through cultural premium, which is actually a very good idea.

The French have made a lot of money using this very idea.

Finally, Mr. Huo's foundation and Wang Jin's foundation are both valuable assets for the dialect, and these will be the breeding ground for the TCM training system in the future, using this money to support more people to join the ranks of TCM practitioners.

After all, people are naturally inclined to seek profit and avoid harm. As long as there is money to be made and there are funds to support and cultivate talent, more talent will surely emerge.

Historically, in the early 80s after the reform and opening up, traditional Chinese medicine was labeled as "backward," and the number of traditional Chinese medicine hospitals across the country decreased sharply. Even the descendants of the four famous doctors in Beijing switched to becoming Western pharmacists.

The country launched the "Modernization Strategy of Traditional Chinese Medicine", but excessive Westernization led to the "abolition of traditional medicine and preservation of drugs". One wrong step led to another. If it weren't for doctors like Deng Tietao and some inheritors supporting the cause, the country would have been ruined long ago.

This time, Fangyan aims to leverage the favorable policy environment and take advantage of the ambiguity of policies in the early stages of reform and opening up to quickly build its team and avoid future restrictions on talent mobility.

The current strategy of Fangyan is essentially to build a triple defense for traditional Chinese medicine, namely, "academic basis, market presence, and resource protection," before Western medical capital floods in on a large scale.

Instead of passively defending against accusations of "pseudoscience," we should use experimental data to prove the efficacy of treatments.

Instead of worrying about capital squeeze, we should first seize the high-end and international markets;
Instead of fearing that standards will be monopolized, we should become the rule-makers ourselves.

It's all about anticipating and exploiting information gaps. This is not only about securing a space for traditional Chinese medicine to survive, but also an inevitable choice for traditional medicine to gain a foothold in the face of changing times.

This is a war without gunfire. The success or failure of Fangyan will determine whether traditional Chinese medicine will become a "harvested heritage" or a "cultural symbol going global" in the wave of reform and opening up. Fangyan believes that its current strategy is sound and that it will definitely be able to break free from its original historical trajectory.

P.S.: That's all for today. Please come early tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)