Producing Immunity across the Hinterlands

Abstract

This chapter surveys the history of vaccine research and development in China's wartime hinterlands during the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War, considering first a major project launched by the League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO) and then, in turn, the major cities of Chongqing, Guiyang, and Lanzhou. Although urban areas were not the only places where medical researchers, students, and administrators worked, they were significant hubs for coordination and exchange. The development of vaccine production in cities coincided with the deployment of new and coercive strategies for immunization, reflecting the ongoing militarization of Chinese society. Yet many urban dwellers welcomed vaccination as a means of defending themselves against disease at a time when the Japanese offensive threatened to cause epidemic catastrophe both directly, through biological warfare, and indirectly, by causing large-scale migrations of refugees and soldiers across the country. Attempts to establish a certification system that connected immunization status to free passage on ships and roads suggested the increasing importance of biology to individual rights and freedoms in wartime China.