Cholera in 20th Century China with Xiaoping Fang

Xiaoping Fang (Monash University) comes on the podcast to discuss his recent book about cholera’s role in mid-20th century China. Fang begins by discussing cholera broadly before moving to focus on its role in China, primarily through examining it as a public health event. Although the mortality of the cholera epidemic was not very high, it was more important in restructuring the Chinese sociopolitical system while also restablishing its legitimacy. Fang touches upon the differential impact of the pandemic and state response on urban and rural Chinese populations. Finally, the conversation moves to Covid and potential linkages between both disease events.