Bring the State Back in the Global/Genomic World: Racial Difference and the Transforming States of Japan, Taiwan and Singapore

Observing the trend that drugs have become more standardized and globalized in the past decade, this paper looks at how East Asia has responded to this change. Considered both as powerful commodities and scientific advancements designed to improve people's health, pharmaceuticals make for a globally interesting narrative subject compared to other products. This also merits an anthropological investigation for the reason that at the interfaces between the West and the East, between the global and the local, between politics and science, we observe issues and disputes that involve how racial difference should be dealt with in an attempt to eliminate unnecessary clinical trials for new drug approvals. Based on fieldwork surrounding the International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH), this study is intended as a “deep description” of East Asian states’ response to the attempt to globalize pharmaceuticals and to do this by exploring the intricate process of negotiation, communication and self-government. It will venture beyond a simple explanation of how globalization is sweeping over the non-western region. Japan, Taiwan and Singapore are the subjects of our investigation, and the question at hand is as follows. Through the single example of pharmaceuticals, what are the emerging characteristics of how these three Asian nations are coping with globalization and how does each negotiate the universal standard proposed, while maintaining the overruling legal need to not compromise on health at a national level? Although “globalization” is the theme of this study, this paper does not wish to bring it to the foreground of our discussion. What we intend to focus on is how ”state” and “race”, two classical concepts that constitute a national state, are firstly challenged by global capitalism, and then referenced by the new strategies and visions being developed. Based on the idea that understanding the differences in their respective reactions to change will help our recognition of the nature of states from the global viewpoint, this study would like to call the need of ethnographies for these emerging subjects. Bring the State Back in the Global/Genomic World: Racial Difference and the Transforming States of Japan, Taiwan and Singapore Wen-Hua Kuo Introduction Observing the recent trend of drugs becoming more standardized and globalized over the past decade, this study looks at how Asia has responded to this change. When considering how the global interacts with the local, previous literature has tended to focus on the former, emphasizing the tactics used to impose on individuals and local groups. However, this study will venture beyond a simple explanation of how globalization is sweeping over the non-Western region. Taking into consideration the usual phenomenon of the local's resistance to globalization, it will work at the national level, exploring the intricate processes of negotiation, communication and self-government that occurs when states deal with global capitalism. The aim of the inquiry at hand is to ask the following. Through the single example of pharmaceuticals, what are the emerging characteristics of three East Asian nations, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, when coping with globalization and how does each negotiate the requirements for imported drug products, while maintaining the overruling legal need to not compromise health at a national level? Another interesting aspect of this debate is how these nations' different responses involve the ever-present issue of "racial differences." Here, this term does not refer to the typical Caucasian versus non-Caucasian dynamic. Regarded as a “non-tariff barrier” from a narrow-sighted business viewpoint, racial difference becomes a reference surpassing skin color and is imbedded deep in the