China, 1929–1937

Abstract

By the late 1920s, the League of Nations Health Organization had established a pattern and method for advising states regarding developing health services. The Health Organization centered this expansion on eastern European rural health programs, fostering collaboration with agrarian regions beyond Europe. This chapter discusses the most extensive collaboration, which occurred in China and provided an opportunity to explore variations of public responsibility for health, as well as internationalism that diverged from the priorities and expectations of Western powers. It expanded the Health Organization’s involvement in developing health services beyond Europe—and, indeed, beyond health and into politics. The Manchuria Crisis in 1931 belied the League’s primary security function, but it also revealed an avenue for increased international attention to social issues. Rather than rejecting international institutions because of the League’s failures, the League Health Organization’s experts in China saw a chance for peace and justice in the League’s ability to support human security and contribute to building a state’s capacities, even during a period of rising militarism.