Research On The US Global Health Diplomacy After The Cold War

With the end of the Cold War and development of globalization,the transnational spread of infectious diseases and the related humanitarian crisis and other public health threats have become huge challenges to the United States.In order to effectively respond to global health challenges,the United States has launched a series of diplomatic actions on global health issues.Studying the US global health diplomacy after the Cold War is not only conducive to enriching the diplomatic theory,but also conducive to grasping the practice of the US global health diplomacy in an all-round way.Based on the official documents of the United States and international organizations and the research results of scholars at home and abroad,we can find that the United States has a long history of participating in international and global health diplomacy,and has gradually formed a more mature concept and system of global health diplomacy in this process.Through grasping the three elements : diplomatic purposes,diplomatic actors and diplomatic tools,it can be concluded that the purpose of the United States participating in global health diplomacy mainly includes four aspects: safeguarding national security and economic interests,disseminating American values and shaping a world order dominated by itself,which can also be regarded as concrete manifestations of American national interests in different fields;The actors of diplomacy include legislative and administrative bodies which include foreign aid system,public health system and other departments.Through various trans-department coordination mechanisms,each agency of the U.S.has get engaged in a process of "whole-of-government" global health diplomacy.According to its functions,The diplomatic tools of American global health diplomacy can be subdivided into four categories: recommendation,operation,cooperation and regulation.In order to further investigate the interaction of diplomatic purposes,diplomatic actors and diplomatic tools in the U.S.global health diplomacy,the U.S.Global AIDS Action and Emergency Response to the Ebola Epidemic were selected as representative cases for in-depth study.It can be found that the United States has formed a global health diplomacy mechanism with the long-term prevention and control of infectious diseases as the centre since the global AIDS prevention and control operations launched.And the mechanism has been further applied to the emergency response to severe infectious diseases.After the Cold War,the global health diplomacy of the United States has achieved positive results in maintaining national health security,promoting national economic prosperity and worldwide human health.However,it should be noted that only when global health issues enter the high-level political field through the process of Securitization and become issues related to national security,can the formation and implementation of global health diplomacy be ensured.As a result,there are some limitations in US global health diplomacy,such as unequal distribution of foreign health aid resources,vulnerability of global health diplomacy to leaders’ preferences and public opinion.These limitations are embodied in the current reality of global health diplomacy in the United States,and also makes the prospect of global health diplomacy in the United States less optimistic.