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The issue of innovations in TCM ( zhongyi) – the Chinese medicine integrated in the public health system promoted by the post-1949 Chinese government, is approached through the case-study of the ongoing biomedicalisation of TCM research and the use of ‘evidence-based medicine’ (EBM) through clinical trials. Three points will be discussed: the first introduces a ‘plural’ medical context and a recent debate in China on the issue of pulling-out TCM from the public health-care system involving official actors, population at large and the academics. The second focuses on aspects of research and development through the case-study of AIDS-related TCM research in China today. The last point discusses the biomedicalisation of research in TCM and its conceptualisation as CAM in a context of TCM fast-track globalisation. Therefore, such discussion raises the broad issue of the interfaces and cultural politics of knowledge.