Since 2025, foreigners traveling to China for medical treatment has become a trend. Some examples of medical/health travel to China:
"I saw your medical escort notes and decided to fly to Shanghai!" The American patient named Malka, who had to wait for two months to schedule a bowel test in the United States, sent a private message to the medical escort specialist Zhao Yang (a pseudonym) in December 2025, and finally chose to come to China for medical treatment.
Ma Weimin, an overseas Chinese entrepreneur in Southeast Asia, after encountering misdiagnosis and high medical expenses in the local hospital, also resolutely bought a plane ticket and returned to China overnight for surgical treatment."Today, our 65th international patient Ivan (a pseudonym) has just been discharged from the hospital" said Rong Baohai, the director of the outpatient department of Shandong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine on January 27th. On October 1, 2025, 32-year-old Mongolian patient Unudelger arrived in Tianjin and was admitted to the hospital. After that, he posted a photo of himself undergoing an MRI examination on Facebook. In the following month, he continuously posted several posts, documenting his experience of receiving medical treatment in China.
The 2025 annual report on international medical services by the National Health Commission of China shows that key international medical institutions received a total of 1.28 million international patients throughout the year, an increase of 73.6% compared to three years ago.
According to media reports, the number of foreign patients seeking treatment and treated at institutions such as Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine Affiliated Hospital, and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University has been increasing. The patients mainly come from the United States, Russia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, etc.
Why China is Emerging as a Global Health & Wellness Destination
Efficiency is the most obvious and compelling advantage of Chinese healthcare for foreign patients. In China, patients can be registered and receive treatment on the same day.China is one of the few countries in the world that can simultaneously offer cutting-edge modern medical technologies (such as stem cell therapy and CAR-T cell therapy) and traditional Chinese medicine wisdom that has been passed down for thousands of years. Modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine provide travelers with various options for achieving different health goals - treating serious illnesses, simply relaxing and rejuvenating, or maintaining a healthy state.
The number of institutions providing international medical services is also continuously increasing. Recently, Shanghai has launched a pilot program for high-level public hospitals in international medical tourism, including Ruijin Hospital, among 13 tertiary hospitals. And in the "2024 China International Medical Service Industry Development Report" released by the International Medical Services Committee of the Chinese Hospital Association, it is estimated that 850 medical institutions in 57 cities within China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) have provided international medical services.
The Heart of Chinese Wellness: Traditional Chinese Medicine
TCM Foundational Therapies & Practices You Can Experience
Acupuncture: The technique involves inserting specially made needles into specific acupoints on the body and using techniques such as twisting and lifting to treat diseases. Acupuncture has significant effects in relieving pain, anxiety, and insomnia.
Moxibustion: This method uses heat to achieve the effects of warming meridians, promoting circulation, activating blood flow, dispelling cold, and removing dampness. On the other hand, it utilizes the medicinal properties of mugwort to unblock meridians.
Fire cupping: Fire cupping is a treatment method where a glass cup is used to create a negative pressure and is then adhered to the skin. It has the effects of unblocking meridians, promoting circulation, activating blood flow, reducing swelling and pain, and dispelling wind and cold. It has an excellent effect in eliminating muscle fatigue. This therapy is favored by Olympic athletes.Massage therapy: Different from ordinary SPA, it is based on the theories of traditional Chinese meridianology and internal organs. By using techniques such as pressing, rubbing, grasping, pushing, pinching, kneading, and squeezing, it stimulates specific areas or acupoints on the body surface. What are the effects? It helps to unblock meridians, relieve neck, shoulder, back and leg pain, and muscle strain, and regulate the functions of internal organs.
Scraping therapy: It is a treatment method where a scraping board is repeatedly applied to the skin, causing the skin to form bruises. The bruises on the skin are like an "exit", allowing the body to discharge excess substances through this point, thereby achieving the effects of promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis, dispelling wind and cold, and eliminating dampness and promoting water metabolism.
Traditional Chinese Medicine: In ancient texts, it is generally referred to as "Sheng Chuang" (literally "herbal medicine"). There are various forms such as decoctions, pills, tablets, powders, wines, ointments, injections, and syrups. Doctors choose the appropriate form based on the patient's condition. Tourists can consult at a regular pharmacy or clinic, visit a traditional Chinese medicine museum, and learn about common ingredients for medicinal cuisine.
International travelers can have a safe experience in traditional Chinese medicine hospitals or specialized health preservation centers in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
>> Recommended: 13-day Authentic China Tour to a local TCM center, and learn TCM
Immersive TCM Experiences Beyond the Clinic
If you want to experience the traditional Chinese medicine on your tours to China for wellness and health, here are more you can experience, apart from the medicine or therapies.Visit the Chinese herbal medicine plantation (available in many places in China) and the Shanghai Traditional Chinese Medicine Museum.
Based on your physical condition/disease experience, try medicinal cuisine, such as chestnut and sugar porridge for strengthening the spleen and kidney, and ginseng and lotus seed porridge for nourishing the lungs and calming the mind.
In the famous tourist destinations in China - Guilin, Yunnan, Huangshan, etc. - enjoy medicinal hot springs.
>> Recommended: 11 Days China Wellness & Health Tour
Cultural Wellness Experiences in China
Tea Wellness Culture and Mindful Living: The philosophy of Chinese tea, from respecting others and valuing life, to transcending oneself and achieving a state of emptiness, emphasizes the health-preserving and soothing functions of tea. Through every minute action of brewing and savoring tea, it promotes communication between humans and nature, blurring the boundaries between self and others. The Longjing tea plantations in Hangzhou or the Wuyi Mountains are excellent places to experience tea culture.
Nature Healing and Mountain Retreats: Have you heard of "harmony between heaven and man"? This is the spiritual concept cherished by traditional Chinese culture. What does it mean? It means that the magnificent and pure nature itself is the most powerful healing energy field. In the most beautiful mountains in China, such as Qingcheng Mountain in Sichuan, Lushan in Jiangxi, Fanjingshan Mountain in Guizhou, and China Avatar Mountains in Zhangjiajie, one can relax and gradually heal.
Calligraphy and painting for health preservation: Ancient Chinese art, calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting, achieve harmony of body and mind through breathing control, wrist movement, and concentration. Easy Tour China can provide you with 2-3 days (or shorter or longer as well) of professional teacher-led calligraphy and painting courses.
Qigong and Tai Chi: The core/ultimate philosophy of Chinese health preservation: balance of yin and yang, appropriate combination of stillness and movement. Go to Wudang Mountain/Qingcheng Mountain, or just in the city parks, you can follow the martial arts masters to perform slow movements and coordinate with deep breathing.
>> Recommended Tours:China's Modern Medical Tourism: Accessing World-Class Care
According to a report by Xinhua News Agency in 2025, the "China's Major Medical Advances in 2024" released by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences covered 13 significant achievements such as stroke treatment, gene therapy, and disease prediction.
2025 was a year when breakthroughs in frontier medicine in China. Chinese doctors implanted pig livers edited by gene editing technology into the human body, stem cell therapy successfully treated Parkinson's disease, a new era of long-acting lipid-lowering, Chinese teams solved the problem of "surgical knot tying", Chinese teams solved the problem of "surgical knot tying", the world's only degradable atrial septal defect occluder, and four other clinical breakthroughs.
The Hainan Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone was approved by the State Council on February 28, 2013, and was granted nine preferential policies. The park piloted the development of international medical tourism-related industries such as special medical care, health management, care and rehabilitation, and medical aesthetics and anti-aging, aiming to gather international and domestic high-end medical tourism services and international cutting-edge medical science and technology achievements, and create an international medical technology service industry cluster area.
Plus, highly qualified medical experts (including many with overseas training backgrounds) provide multilingual services.So, is China good for medical tourism? Yes. Travel to China for medical care, the cost of many complex surgeries and treatments is much lower than in European and American countries. Moreover, there is no need to wait for a long time for surgery.>> Related reading: The Experience of Seeing a Doctor in the Chinese Hospital
Top Wellness & Medical Destinations in China - Choose the One/Ones Best for You
>> Recommended Tours:
Planning Your Health & Wellness Trip to China: Practical Tips
- Based on your travel purpose, whether it is for disease treatment, health tourism, or wellness trip, choose the destination and institution/activities.
- If it is your medical travel to China, look for hospitals with international certifications (such as JCI) and those with experience in treating international patients (including professional medical translation services). Also, comprehensively compare the hospital qualifications & services as well as the treatment costs.
- Consult your doctor in advance and formulate a treatment/relaxation plan. Determine whether follow-up visits are necessary and other details.
- If you are interested in a wellness tour in China, Easy Tour China can arrange the itinerary according to your needs.
- According to the duration of your treatment/relaxation trip, apply for a China visa.