Public Health, National Strength and Regime Legitimacy: China’s Patriotic Health Campaign

This talk With Elizabeth Perry (Harvard University) focuses on China's longest-lived mass movement: the Patriotic Health Campaign (PHC). Introduced by Mao Zedong in 1952 during the Korean War, the PHC continues even today, having recently played a role in Xi Jinping's Zero-Covid effort. The talk will question the official characterization of the PHC as a "uniquely Chinese" approach to sanitation and epidemic control, noting the influence of the American Tuberculosis Movement and YMCA health campaigns, while at the same time emphasizing the central importance of public health in the legitimation of Chinese Communist rule, from revolutionary days to the present.