Foreign visitors are increasingly packing a hospital appointment into their China itinerary: a three‑day clinical package in Nanjing, a same‑day MRI in Shenzhen, acupuncture and recuperation in border resorts catering to Russians. Public tertiary hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have opened international departments that sell high‑margin, cash‑only services to foreigners — often combining clinical care with sightseeing — and advertise speed, low prices and treatments that are hard to schedule abroad.
The expansion has been accelerated by policy and infrastructure. A generous 240‑hour visa‑free transit regime has lifted inbound flows and, under the Health China 2030 agenda, local governments from Hainan to Shanghai have designated pilot hospitals and standards to capture medical tourists. PwC forecasts the domestic medical‑tourism market will surpass RMB 300 billion by 2029, and municipal campaigns aim to brand Chinese cities as global health destinations.
The economics explain the frenzy. China’s top public hospitals are crowded with clinicians concentrated in megacities and facing intense competition for domestic positions; offering international, fee‑for‑service care lets them earn foreign currency and cross‑subsidise ordinary, publicly funded departments. International units typically operate outside the national insurance system, charging international prices and using those revenues to ease fiscal pressure on hospital budgets.
The pitch is pragmatic and persuasive. Patients point to faster access — MRI scans that would take months at home, available the same day in China — and to substantial price gaps: a coronary bypass in Shanghai at roughly $40,000 versus $130,000 in the United States, and cosmetic operations at 30–50% of Western costs. Social media amplifies these narratives and has become an important marketing channel for the emerging industry.
China is not inventing medical tourism, but it is adapting established models. The article traces parallels with Cuba’s dual‑track international hospitals that export services for foreign exchange, Japan’s high‑end cancer screening market, Turkey’s mass hair‑transplant sector and South Korea’s cosmetic surgery business. Each nation specialises according to comparative strengths; China’s proposition is broad — combining large hospital clusters, competitive pricing, traditional Chinese medicine and inbound tourism.
That breadth is a strength and a risk. Integrating TCM‑led rehabilitation with sightseeing creates a distinct product — “needle, spa and sightsee” packages in border cities like Hunchun have drawn Russian families en masse — but quality control, accreditation and international recognition lag behind the manufacturing brand that China has long exported. ‘‘Made in China’’ is still an imperfect signal in global healthcare, where trust and consistent standards matter more than in goods manufacturing.
The growth also carries political economy questions. Directing wealthy foreigners to premium services raises concerns about two‑tier medicine; even if international departments technically keep foreign patients off the domestic insurance rolls, the perception that hospitals prioritise paying foreigners can feed social resentment. Rapid expansion concentrated in a few first‑tier cities could worsen regional disparities, while Hainan’s promise of fast‑track approvals for foreign drugs and devices highlights regulatory trade‑offs between attracting patients and protecting domestic safety standards.
For municipal planners and tourism officials, medical tourism is an attractive lever for upgrading the tourism mix from commodity sightseeing to high‑value, experience‑led travel. Where previous “high‑end” offers leaned on luxury hotels and expensive amenities, medical tourism ties travel to an enduring, non‑replicable service — health — that can command premium prices and produce spillovers for local hospitality and retail sectors.
Yet the industry’s future hinges on trust, regulation and the ability to professionalise the export of clinical services. Chinese hospitals and local governments can monetise spare capacity and deliver economic benefits, but sustaining flows will require internationally recognised accreditation, clearly enforceable patient‑safety protocols and mechanisms to manage domestic equity concerns. Without those fixes, China risks a volatile boom that benefits a narrow set of providers and cities but does not establish the durable global reputation that medical tourism depends on.
As countries from Turkey to Japan show, medical tourism can be a lucrative, reputation‑shaping industry — but it is shaped as much by policy and standards as by price. For China, the opportunity is large: the country’s combination of broad clinical capabilities, fast throughput and cultural offerings could reconfigure parts of the global health market. Realising that potential will demand careful regulation, investment in international certification and measures to ensure that domestic patients do not become collateral damage in the race for foreign currency.