On August 25, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine (AHUCM) held an unveiling ceremony for the Manchester Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Center at the China-UK TCM Center in Manchester, UK. Xu Fan attended the ceremony, Vice Party Secretary and President of AHUCM, and Tang Shulan, Dean of the British Lancang TCM College, who jointly unveiled the center. Also present at the ceremony were Ren Qinghua, Vice Governor of Anhui Province, Liu Tongzhu, Party Secretary and Director of the Anhui Provincial Health Commission, Wu Zhenyu, Deputy Secretary-General of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, Fan Qi, Deputy Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Education Working Committee, Yang Xiaolin, Deputy Director of the Anhui Foreign Affairs Office, Xie Ruijin, Vice Party Secretary of Anhui Medical University, and Feng Shaolin, Consul of the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester, along with other distinguished guests from China and the UK.
During the ceremony, Ren Qinghua highly praised the establishment of the center and warmly congratulated AHUCM on its efforts to promote the internationalization of TCM. He encouraged the university to continue embracing the spirit of "inheritance of essence, adherence to principles, and innovation," contributing further to the prosperity and development of TCM worldwide.
Feng Shaolin, Xu Fan, and Tang Shulan each delivered speeches. Feng Shaolin congratulated the center’s establishment and expressed hope for further deepened cooperation between the two sides. Xu Fan highlighted that the establishment of the Manchester TCM Center is a milestone in AHUCM’s efforts to globalize TCM, and the second overseas TCM center after the Athens TCM Center in Greece. He noted that the center would significantly promote the international presence of Anhui TCM. Tang Shulan remarked that the center would play an important role in advancing TCM cooperation between China and the UK and looked forward to the center providing high-quality TCM services to the local community.
In the afternoon of August 25, during the Anhui International Academic Exchange session of the 5th China-Europe TCM Cooperation and Development Forum along the "Belt and Road" initiative, AHUCM and the British Lancang TCM College jointly signed a supplementary agreement on "Joint Training of Graduate Students from Abroad." This collaboration aims to cultivate graduate students who will come to China for further study.
The China-UK TCM Center, one of the projects under the Belt and Road initiative, is the only China-UK TCM center designated by the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of China. The center aims to promote Chinese medicine culture in the UK better and serve the health of the local public. The British Lancang TCM College, established in 1991, has trained thousands of foreign TCM practitioners, including over 100 overseas master’s and doctoral students in TCM. Its students come from countries such as the UK, Ireland, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, the US, Singapore, Switzerland, and Spain. The college, located in the second-largest city in the UK, Manchester, has two campuses—one in the city center and another in the southern part of the city. It provides international students with opportunities to study TCM, offering programs in acupuncture, herbal medicine, formulae, internal medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, dermatology, and the four classic theories of TCM.
The establishment of the Anhui University of Chinese Medicine Manchester TCM Center marks a new starting point for AHUCM's expansion of TCM into the UK. The university plans to leverage the Manchester TCM Center platform to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the TCM community in the UK and the European Union. Together, they will promote the inheritance and innovative development of TCM, contributing the wisdom and strength of Chinese medicine to global health.
