Brahman Bull and Dragon: Assessing the political economy of the “safe” regulation of Traditional Asian Medicines

The current globalisation of Asian Medicines has developed in conjunction with the growth of international and multilateral regulations for the “safe” manufacturing and export of these commodified products. The World Health Organization's construction of safety has been central to the development of the regulation of the global Asian medicine market. WHO's guidelines for Good Practices in the production of Asian Medicines including: manufacturing practices, agricultural and collection practices, and laboratory practices have been central to this discourse. Control and regulation of toxic substances including those that are classified as heavy metals and poisons has been of particular concern in both the WHO discourse and market discourse of the distribution of safe and effective non-biomedical health products. Through archival research and participant observation in WHO meetings concerning future strategies for traditional Asian medicines, this paper explores the myriad political economic forces that have shaped this discourse of safety affecting the manufacture and globalisation of Asian medicine products; particularly those from China and India. Political economic factors identified include: trade relationships and agreements between countries within East Asia and South Asia; the development of regulations on importations of Chinese medicinal products in Europe and North America; and the political restructuring of the Traditional Medicine Unit of the WHO under the division of Essential Medicines. Central to this analysis is an historical contextualisation of why China, rather than India, has consistently dominated the Asian Medicine discourse, frameworks, research, and guidelines of The WHO.