Attention Points of Research and Education in TCMP across Taiwan Strait and Recommendations for Future Research and Development of TCM in China Mainland Especially Fujian and Taiwan

Objective: China mainland and Taiwan are separated by the Taiwan Strait, but their land edges are close to each other, blood relationship is very compact, and the origin is profound, the communication of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) between China mainland especially Fujian and Taiwan district is more and more frequent. From the actuality and situation of traditional Chinese medicine and pharmacy (TCMP), the objective of this study was to briefly expound the points to which attention should be attached urgently in education, research and development of TCM between China mainland especially between Fujian and Taiwan, and be provide with several resolving threads and recommenddations to aim directly at the attention points, and wish it can offer some assistance to the development and generalization of the cross-Strait TCMP. Methods: The China Statistical Yearbook of Chinese Medicine (1987-2010), the Yearbook of Public Health of Taiwan (2009), the full-text data base of China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) (1993-2009), provides information on research and education in TCMP across Taiwan Strait in the last 10 years. The methods of analysis and comparison are applied in this study to show the TCMP situation between Taiwan and China mainland. Result: Due to the differences in history, district, policy and legislation, the TCMP’s industry and trade, education, research and exploitation, standard and so on, have lots of differences between Taiwan and China mainland, and many barriers are produced in the communication and cooperation of cross-Strait TCM and pharmacy. Conclusion: China mainland especially Fujian and Taiwan have the fierce intention to carry out thorough investigation in many territories of TCMP. The prospects and development space of communication and cooperation of cross-Strait TCMP are quite broad.