scholarly journals China’s innovation-based approach in the fight of Covid-19. An estimation of China’s impact for global health to come

2022 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 24-44
Author(s):  
Josie-Marie Perkuhn

When the infectious coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 broke out it resulted in a global crisis. In the fight of Covid-19, China’s government relied on its strength to apply new technologies, i.e. for controlling and containment of the virus by tracing and tracking Chinese citizens. Relying on the trajectory of industrialisation, China has pursued a path of innovation. While it is reasoned that China’s advantage might have origin in the experience of the SARS outbreak almost two decades ago, this article argues that mainly China’s innovation- driven climate has favoured the application of new technologies in combatting the current crisis. Based on the innovation-driven trajectory this article explores China’s pathway out the corona crisis and how this might strengthen China’s role in global health governance. In order to pursue this aim, this article explores several areas, in which the next generation of technologies, such as AI-based diagnostic or intelligent robots were applied and concludes with an outlook based on the formulated political agenda, strategic considerations and initial international cooperation regarding China’s impact for global health.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ru-Bo Wang ◽  
Yi-Ting Hong ◽  
Xiao-Nong Zhou

Abstract Background With the promotion of national control programs on parasitic and tropical diseases in China, the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases (NIPD), Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention has gained significant experience in the global health arena through international cooperation over the last seven decades allowing a multilateral impact in the elimination of major endemic diseases. Methods The achievements of NIPD since 1950 has been analyzed with emphasis on the various stages that started with research and control of the endemic parasitic and other tropical diseases at the national level and progressed via international cooperation into a global presence. Results The major achievements contributed by NIPD consist of (i) improving technical capability; (ii) promoting control and elimination of parasitic and tropical diseases; (iii) participating in global health governance and cooperation; and (iv) developing a cooperation model for technical assistance and global public health development. It is expected that NIPD’s experience of international cooperation will be essential for the dissemination of China's successful experience in global health governance, emergency response and development, with focus on malaria and neglected tropical diseases such as schistosomiasis, soil-borne and food-borne helminthiases and echinococcosis. Conclusions NIPD’s new tasks will not only continue to promote national control of endemic parasitic infections and disease elimination programs in China, but also play a leading role in global health and disease elimination programs in the future.


Author(s):  
Jeremy Youde

In the 1980s, health was a marginal issue on the international political agenda, and it barely figured into donor states’ foreign aid allocation. Within a generation, health had developed a robust set of governance structures that drove significant global political action, incorporated a wide range of actors, and received increasing levels of funding. What explains this dramatic change over such a short period of time? Drawing on the English School of international relations theory, this book argues that global health has emerged as a secondary institution within international society. Rather than being a side issue, global health now occupies an important role. Addressing global health issues—financially, organizationally, and politically—is part of how actors demonstrate their willingness and ability to help realize their moral responsibility and obligation to others. In this way, it demonstrates how global health governance has emerged, grown, and persisted—even in the face of global economic challenges and inadequate responses to particular health crises. The argument also shows how English School conceptions of international society would benefit from expanding their analytical gaze to address international economic issues and incorporate non-state actors. The book begins by building a case for using the English School to understand the role of global health governance before looking at global health governance’s place in international society through case studies about the growth of development assistance for health, the international response to the Ebola outbreak, and China’s role within the global health governance framework.


Author(s):  
Mary Robinson

Institutions matter for the advancement of human rights in global health. Given the dramatic development of human rights under international law and the parallel proliferation of global institutions for public health, there arises an imperative to understand the implementation of human rights through global health governance. This volume examines the evolving relationship between human rights, global governance, and public health, studying an expansive set of health challenges through a multi-sectoral array of global organizations. To analyze the structural determinants of rights-based governance, the organizations in this volume include those international bureaucracies that implement human rights in ways that influence public health in a globalizing world. Bringing together leading health and human rights scholars and practitioners from academia, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations system, this volume explores: (1) the foundations of human rights as a normative framework for global health governance, (2) the mandate of the World Health Organization to pursue a human rights-based approach to health, (3) the role of inter-governmental organizations across a range of health-related human rights, (4) the influence of rights-based economic governance on public health, and (5) the focus on global health among institutions of human rights governance. Contributing chapters map the distinct human rights activities within a specific institution of global governance for health. Through the comparative institutional analysis in this volume, the contributing authors examine institutional efforts to operationalize human rights in organizational policies, programs, and practices and assess institutional factors that facilitate or inhibit human rights mainstreaming for global health advancement.


Author(s):  
Jeremy Youde

While Chapter 3 focuses primarily on the evolution of global health governance, Chapter 4 pays more attention to its contemporary manifestation as a secondary institution within international society. This chapter discusses the current state of the global health governance architecture—who the important actors are, how they operate, how they have changed over the past twenty-five years, and how they illustrate the fundamental beliefs and attitudes within the global health governance system. In particular, the chapter discusses the relative balance between state-based and non-state actors, as well as public versus private actors. This chapter highlights five key players within contemporary global health governance: states; the World Health Organization; multilateral funding agencies; public–private partnerships; and non-state and private actors


Author(s):  
Jeremy Youde

China possesses the world’s largest economy, but that economic clout has not necessarily translated into taking leading roles within existing global health governance institutions and processes. It is a country that both contributes to and receives financial assistance from global health institutions. It has incorporated health into some of its foreign policy activities, but it has largely avoided proactively engaging with the values and norms embodied within the global health governance system. This ambivalent relationship reflects larger questions about how and whether China fits within international society and what its engagement or lack thereof might portend for international society’s future. This chapter examines China’s place within global health governance by examining its interactions with international society on global health issues, its use of health as a foreign policy tool, and its relationships with global health governance organizations.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Prah Ruger

The global health governance (GHG) literature frames health variously as a matter of security and foreign policy, human rights, or global public good. Divergence among these perspectives has forestalled the development of a consensus vision for global health. Global health policy will differ according to the frame applied. Fundamentally, GHG today operates on a rational actor model, encompassing a continuum from the purely self-interest-maximizing position at one extreme to a more nuanced approach that takes others’ interests into account when making one’s own calculations. Even where humanitarian concerns are clearly and admirably at play, however, the problem of motivations remains. Often narrow self-interest is also at work, and actors obfuscate this behind altruistic motives.


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