Abstract: Broadcast gymnastics, which was initiated in 1951, is one of the most widely adopted and popular mass sports activities in China, embodying the country’s commitment to shaping the right to health of its citizens. The history and development of broadcast gymnastics are closely tied to the destiny of the nation, reflecting clear national will, and aiming to achieve the goal of “shaping new individuals”. The institutional forms of broadcast gymnastics can be categorized into three stages: “military simulation”, “administrative reinforcement” and “market competition”, each of which aligns with the objectives and needs of different periods. Taking the establishment and promotion of broadcast gymnastics in China as a focal point helps construct a doctrinal framework for the right to health. Based on the purposes and means of health shaping, the implementation of the right to health can be divided into four types: national health projects, citizens’ health rights, the social health industry, and civic health consumption. National health projects, facilitated by legislative mechanisms, provide institutional support and supply for citizens’ health rights. The right to health, as a social right, has both a subjective rights orientation and an objective value order orientation, thus establishing the individual’s subject status in terms of their right to health. Its defense aspect is oriented toward rejecting excessive state intervention, while the benefit aspect directly links to the state’s payment measures. The boundaries of state power also need to be defined in the social health industry and civic health consumption. Hence, developing broadcast gymnastics involves adjusting its relationship with the overall objectives of the state and individual citizens’ needs. It involves balancing the use of administrative and market methods, continually innovating sports programs that better suit diverse needs, and actively participating in the competition of the fitness market.

 

Keywords: broadcast gymnastics · right to health · national formation · institutional form · boundary of rights

 

 

The basic consciousness of problems on the right to health in China is constituted by how to expound on the Chinese characteristics of the right to health, how to explain the path of exerting the right to health, and how to build the theoretical system and normative system of the right to health based on the local experience. From replying and resolving the consciousness, there are two main academic paradigms derived: The first is empirical observation and summary. For example, the white paper Development of China’s Public Health as an Essential Element of Human Rights issued by the State Council Information Office in 2017 summarized the security mode of the right to health with Chinese characteristics as five main features: health priority, prevention first, public welfare leading, fair and universal benefit, and co-building and sharing.¹ The second is the building and interpretation of doctrine. For example, based on the complex structure of the right to health, scholars believe that the right to health has both a passive rights orientation (defense against external interventions in health) and a positive rights orientation (including the subjective benefit right, which directly demands administrative payment, and the objective order guarantee right, which indirectly demands right protection), thus establishing the individual’s subject status in terms of their right to health.² However, there are major theoretical gaps and dialogue difficulties between these two paradigms: Empirical research is perfect for narration, which helps to lay out the discourse system of the right to health with Chinese characteristics and tell the Chinese story of the right to health in a proper way. However, it tends to be short of normative direction and construction function, limiting its effect on the systematic improvement of the right to health. Doctrinal analysis is good at construction, which is conducive to promoting the rule of law of the right to health with Chinese characteristics and forming a normative system of the right to health, while it is inclined to ignore the historical background and context, and thus fails to deal well with issues such as pre-specification (the factors that determine the generation of specifications) and extra-specification (the external conditions that affect the implementation of specifications). Therefore, this paper attempts to combine the two research paradigms of the right to health, add the normative research method into the historical context, and construct the narrative and normative theory of the discourse on the right to health with Chinese characteristics from the perspective of body politics and rights protection. On these grounds, the national obligations to citizen’s health are illustrated and the degree of national intervention in citizen’s health is clear.

 

This paper takes the creation and promotion of broadcast gymnastics as the focal point of observation and reveals the state will and individual rights that drive this national fitness campaign by examining the rise and fall of broadcast gymnastics. Broadcast gymnastics is selected as a research example for the following reasons: (1) It has a long history that spans almost as far back as the establishment of the first set  in 1951, which coincides with the history of the People’s Republic of China”;³ (2) in terms of the scale of participation, broadcast gymnastics has a much higher popularity rate than other sports, and its scope and mobilization far exceeds that of campuses, state organs, factories and mining enterprises. Broadcast gymnastics has become a real national fitness program, known as “the most participated sport in China”, as well as the “national exercise”; (3) as far as the degree of institutionalization is concerned, broadcast gymnastics has a strong state will since its inception. Most of the spontaneous fitness programs of the people vary in institutionalization after reaching a certain stage of development,⁴ and thus we can have a better insight and understanding of the national expectations and shaping of citizens’ health by means of the observation of broadcast gymnastics; (4) as for the academic value, the current research on the body politics and the research on sports and nationalism in modern times have been quite in-depth,⁵ but the case studies on broadcast gymnastics have not been fully carried out, and it is clear that there is a closer link between broadcast gymnastics and the right to health of citizens.

 

 

In September 1949, the Common Program of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the provisional constitution of the People’s Republic of China, clearly stipulated that “national sports shall be advocated” and “the health of mothers, infants and children shall be carefully protected” and included them as an important part of the cultural and educational policy of the People’s Republic of China. In the process of drafting, the policy on culture and education “was not discussed much, just in short as the national form, the scientific content, and the public direction”.⁶ It is reasonable to conclude that the main purpose of establishing the policies of national sports and maternal and child health in the Common Program of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference was to alter the weak national physique in the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In a report to the Government Administration Council in 1950, Li Dequan, Minister of Health, said that since the reactionary Kuomintang government paid little attention to the cause of people’s health, the health and medical institutions were rudimentary and unequal in distribution, serving only a few people. As a result, the total number of disease cases in the whole population of China was about 140 million per year, the mortality rate was more than 30‰, and the vast majority of women giving birth relied on midwives, resulting in  about 40% of the infant mortality rate.⁷ Therefore, the national sports in the People’s Republic of China should be national, scientific and popular: the national form means that the sports events should be reformed based on China’s national conditions and practical needs; the scientific content signifies that the intensity and theme of sports should be reasonably designed in line with the objective level of the national physique; and the public orientation means to change the situation that sports only serve a few people, so that the benefits of sports are shared by all people, and implement the “national sports” stipulated in the Common Program of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

 

 

Guided and regulated by the Common Program of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, broadcast gymnastics, as a national, scientific and popular form of sport, was quickly created and popularized, which implied the necessity of contingency. In the winter of 1950, Yang Lie, the then-secretary of the Organizing Committee of the National Sports Federation, submitted a report to the committee, suggesting that the People’s Republic of China create a set of national fitness exercises, a request that was quickly approved. She and her colleague Liu Yizhen worked on the basic framework for China’s first broadcast gymnastics by referring to the Japanese “chilli gymnastics” (the Japanese word for “broadcast” sounds similar to the Chinese word for “chilli”): 10 bars for 5 minutes.⁸ In fact, the broadcast gymnastics of Japan is not original, but draws on the experience of American insurance companies advocating broadcast gymnastics to improve the physical fitness of insurance customers, and lower the claim ratio of health insurance. In 1924, the head of the Japanese Ministry of Post and Communications went to the United States to study the insurance industry and learned about broadcast gymnastics. In order to improve the health of the people and promote the development of the insurance industry, broadcast gymnastics was introduced to Japan. In 1928, it was named “National Health Gymnastics” and promoted on a large scale in Japan.⁹ Therefore, in terms of the transmission path of broadcast gymnastics, the change of nature from the American business model to the Japanese national system quietly occurred. “The broadcast gymnastics in Japan can not only invigorate the health of children and adults, but also get into their minds and emotions, that is, via the broadcast, people do the same movement, listen to the same tune, follow the same order, so that the national power can be exerted on almost all people.”¹⁰ This broadcast gymnastics of Japan, which China directly learned from, is inherently imprinted with the color of physical discipline.

 

Developing broadcast gymnastics as an administrative mobilization was more directly inspired by the Soviet Union’s experience. Yang Lie, who initiated broadcast gymnastics in China, visited the Soviet Union in 1950 and was deeply impressed by  its “Labor & Defense System”.¹¹ The gymnastics in the “Labor & Defense System”, with no need for special venues, equipment, uniform, or complex technical training, can be done by people regardless of age and gender and be promoted as a widely accessible exercise. Yang was deeply inspired by this.¹² In 1954, He Long, the Vice Premier of the State Council and director of the State Sports Commission, published an article in the People’s Daily praising the Soviet Union’s “Labor & Defense System” after his visit to the Soviet Union. He pointed out that in the Soviet Union, “Sports have truly become the undertaking of the whole people and an indispensable part of each worker’s daily life. In addition to the general participation in broadcast gymnastics, the Stalin Automobile Factory in Moscow has about 8,000 employees regularly engaged in 32 sports exercise.”¹³ In essence, what truly impressed decision-makers in China’s new sports industry was not just the specific carrier or form of gymnastics, but rather the deep integration of physical exercise and national defense that embodied the strong capacity of national mobilization of the Soviet Union. Scholars have noted that in the early days of the People’s Republic of China, the decision to mimic the Soviet sports model of the “Labor & Defense System” and the broadcast gymnastics popular among the general public was a perfect example of national unity in achieving revolutionary production and building strong bodies.¹⁴

 

In terms of institutional reference, China directly adopted the successful experience of the “Labor & Defense System” from the Soviet Union. In 1954, the State Sports Commission issued the Interim Regulations on the Physical Education System of “Preparing for Labor and Defending the Country”, which promoted the participation of the entire population in physical training through quantitative standards and evaluation. The goal was to train each participant to become a strong, brave, determined, and optimistic defender of the motherland and a builder of socialism through the Labor & Defense System.¹⁵ In this regard, the core of the Labor & Defense System, in the form of physical exercise, was to combine individual health with national security and national construction, which can be regarded as the “political enlightenment” of the state on citizens’ bodies, i.e., people’s control over their bodies and demands for health are natural behaviors. However, when this behavior is linked to higher national goals, body control and the pursuit of health become necessary means to achieve national goals. The process of politicizing the body involves awakening and enlightening it. This means transferring the body from the private sphere to the public sphere. Physical health is not just a matter for individuals or families, but is elevated to a national or collective goal. The community has a responsibility to promote the qualified health of its members. In 1953, the Soviet gymnastics troupe visited  China to perform, and the People’s Daily took it as an example to clarify the goal of developing physical training in socialist countries: “The aim of communist education is to cultivate the individuals with all-round development. As an integral part of communist education, physical education is supposed to nurture individuals in all aspects of physical development. Gymnastics exercises serve the same purpose.”¹⁶ It further illustrates that broadcast gymnastics launched after the founding of the People’s Republic of China has the fundamental goal of shaping the “new people” of socialism.

 

B. Trace the historical origin of broadcast gymnastics

 

If we look further back in history, we can see that shaping of health, including broadcast gymnastics, was not unique to the People’s Republic of China, nor was it just influenced by Japan and the Soviet Union, but a key proposition that was long associated with China’s modern history. In line with the research of scholars, after the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, a group of opinion leaders, including Yan Fu, Liang Qichao, and Cai E, realized that “the strength of the national power not only depends on the leadership and decision-making of the government, but more importantly, the strength of the country depends on the quality of the people — a strong country must first strengthen its people.”¹⁷ In this context, the use of humiliating rhetoric such as the “sick man of East Asia” serves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it refers to China’s perceived weakness in terms of national strength, while on the other hand, it implies that the physique of its people is also weak. This creates a situation where the improvement of the national fortunes (a strong nation) and the health of its people (a strong populace) become mutually reinforcing goals. This mindset was directly reflected in the national movement of the late Qing Dynasty, which aimed to cultivate the fighting spirit and skills of the people through the integration of civil and military forces, to better defend the country.¹⁸ So the modern sense of sports (once also known as “gymnastics”) was systematically introduced into China. In 1906, the Qing Government Department pointed out in its explanation of the New Law on Education in the Qing Dynasty: “The imperial court is keen on military preparation and takes military training as the priority. All kinds of textbooks in primary and secondary schools must contain military nationalism, and children should be quite familiar with it. In the discipline of gymnastics, the young build their bodies with game gymnastics, and the elderly strictly regulate their discipline with military gymnastics.”¹⁹ 

 

Since the purpose of gymnastics is to strengthen the country and the army, the chosen object of study must also be aimed at advanced countries. At first, the physical education classes were mainly military gymnastics, general gymnastics and sports, and the content was mainly modeled after Germany, Sweden and Japan, and the  American track and field events were not considered.²⁰ Studying the gymnastics in Germany, Sweden and Japan, we can find they all started at the time of the decline of the country and the invasion of foreign enemies: Germany’s “Yang Gymnastics” was initiated when the Kingdom of Prussia was defeated by Napoleon, with gymnastics used to “promote political reform while arousing the political participation and nationalist feelings of the people”;²¹ it was followed by Sweden’s “Lin Gymnastics”, which was also initiated against the French and Russian aggression, and some scholars even said that “Swiss sports in the early 19th century were closely linked to nationalism and militarism”;²² in Japan, gymnastics was an important part of the school physical education curriculum during the Meiji Restoration, serving the national interests of Japan.²³ Therefore, the Qing government also hoped to imitate these typical countries and reinforce the physique and spirit of the people by setting up gymnastics courses and carrying out “military national sports campaigns”. It is worth mentioning that after the defeat of Germany in the First World War, the enthusiasm of most Chinese people for “military national sports” and “military gymnastics” gradually faded. In the resolution of the fifth National Education Federation held in October 1919, it was proposed that “in view of the trend of the world, military nationalism is no longer in line with the trend of new education, so school physical education should be improved.”²⁴ Since then, the schools have imitated the American mode in sports curriculum, adding track and field and ball events, while implementing “new gymnastics”.²⁵ It shows that in the introduction of Western gymnastics experience, the government has a strong pragmatic tendency, that is, gymnastics as an effective way to enhance civic and national strength, so the object of imitation and learning is constantly changing.

 

Since 1934, the Kuomintang government had vigorously promoted the “New Life Movement”, which can be regarded as an upgraded and strengthened version of the “military national movement”, trying to establish discipline and order through the comprehensive training of the common public’s clothing, food, housing and transportation. As “the first government-led movement to improve people’s daily life in modern China”,²⁶ the New Life Movement placeds higher expectations on people’s bodies and therefore imposed more direct and comprehensive management. The movement regulated the daily life of the people in every detail, such as proposing a ban on having long hair or a perm, promoting anti-smoking and prohibiting drugs, advocating cold water showers, punishing spitting, removing garbage and sewage, requiring vaccination and epidemic prevention, and carrying out campaigns to eradicate flies and rats. In terms of physical education and sports, “Since 1935, when the Kuomintang government publicized 21 annual core activities, including physical education, the New Life Movement Organization had consistently advocated the popularization of national sports and vigorously promoted physical education as an important work content.”²⁷ However, because the New Life Movement could not fully guarantee the people’s subjectivity, initiative and enthusiasm for participation by means of thorough social mobilization, most of the demands were just formalities, and even had to rely on the gendarmerie and police to persuade or even punish. The cost of implementation and supervision was infinitely high, so the effect wasn’t good even with the strong support of the government. As scholars have pointed out, “The movement expects self-disciplined, constant, and continuous improvement/control of each individual’s behavior, but its success or failure can only be verified by heteronomous, temporary, and intermittent monitoring in the context of power.”²⁸ It shows that developing national sports and shaping the health of the whole people cannot only be a top-down enthusiasm of the elite, but more importantly, through effective absorption and mobilization, promote the common people to establish a correct view of sports and health and consciously conform to the grand goals established by the country.

 

 

Deeply influenced by the thoughts of sports saving and strengthening the country in the late Qing Dynasty, the leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC) further linked physical health closely with nationalism and emphasized the role of sports in shaping “new people”. In April 1917, Mao Zedong published an article titled A Study on Sports in the magazine La Jeunesse, in which he highlighted the concern that national strength, military spirit, and physical fitness were weak and increasingly unvalued. He advocated for “six-segment exercises” as a solution.²⁹ Furthermore, Yun Daiying (1985-1931), the early leader of the CPC, made in-depth research on gymnastics and physical education, and wrote more than 10 papers on sports such as Opinions on Improving Private Schools and Research on School Physical Education.³⁰ In Research on School Physical Education published in June 1917, Yun Daiying reflected on “military national education” and proposed a systematic reform plan: “Reform fragmented physical education into systematic physical education; insufficient sports into well-developed sports; the great-leaped sports into progressive sports; boring sports into interesting sports.”³¹ It can be seen that the leaders of the CPC pay great attention to the cultivation of the physical fitness of the people (especially the physical health of young people), and place great emphasis on strengthening the physical fitness of the people and promoting scientific physical training to enhance the national strength and change the national state of enduring impoverishment and long-standing debility.

 

It is worth mentioning that both Mao Zedong and Yun Daiying had a strong interest in calisthenics. When studying at Hunan First Normal University, Mao Zedong drew the good points of various sports to create a unique “six-segment exercise”, a fitness exercise that combines gymnastics and martial arts, and promoted it in the University.³² Among the sports papers translated and written by Yun Daiying are those devoted to gymnastics, such as Improvement of Ordinary Gymnastics and Best Five-Minute Gymnastics, and a “Walking Club” at the private Wuchang Zhonghua University, dedicated to physical exercise and moral cultivation, was also organized.³³ Although there is no systematic study on why the leaders of the Communist Party of China believed in gymnastics, it can be roughly inferred that these were the main reasons: (1) The “military national movement” since the late Qing Dynasty, the important theme of which is the promotion of “military gymnastics”, had a profound impact on the youth at that time; (2) compared with competitive sports, gymnastics features relatively weak antagonism, which was suitable for the light and weak physique of Chinese people at that time; (3) calisthenics requires no special equipment, venues and skills, and is easy to be popularized on a large scale; (4) calisthenics has deep roots in traditional culture. For example, Chairman Mao Zedong integrated traditional martial arts elements into the six-segment exercise.

 

The revolutionary base areas under the leadership of the CPC have further made shaping people’s health an important goal of governance. During the Second Revolutionary Civil War, the CPC led and organized the Red Army and the masses to carry out rich sports activities. During his term as Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic and Chairman of the Provisional Central Government, Mao Zedong made the call to “build up the physique of the workers and peasants and defeat all enemies” and “promote physical sports and make exercise for a strong physique to improve military technology.”³⁴ At the Second National Soviet Congress in 1935, Chairman Mao Zedong pointed out that “The red sports of the masses have also developed rapidly. Now, track & field competitions are also available in remote villages, and sports fields can be seen in quite many places.”³⁵ During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, mass sports further flourished, and the sports policy of “going in for physical training so as to fight against Japanese aggression” was announced. Sports should conform to the reality of the revolutionary struggle and serve the revolutionary struggle, it said.³⁶ It should be noted that the physical exercise promoted by the CPC in the process of revolution emphasized the  class attribute of sports, making sports have a new class dimension. Physical training emphasized that “to uphold national, scientific, popular and communist ideology, we must abolish bourgeois ideology and establish proletarian ideology. We must integrate proletarian ideology with the masses of workers and peasants, spread it among them, serve them, instead of being owned by a few.”³⁷ This meant that sports in the socialist context was the sport of the broad masses of workers and farmers rather than the exclusive right of a few privileged classes; accordingly, the purpose of physical exercise should be to achieve the health of the masses, not the health of a few. Therefore, in the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Rong Gaotang, then-vice president of the All-China Sports Federation, specifically said in his report that “Sports activities have broken through the relatively narrow scope and begun to develop to the broader masses, and sports serving a minority in the old society have changed.³⁸ All these prove that the national sports dominated by the CPC are significantly different from the previous sports, and emphasize the commonness and universality of sports.

 

 

In flashback, the author traces back the rising process and historical origin of gymnastics. It can be observed that the military defeat and the decline of national strength since the late Qing Dynasty have prompted advanced political forces to try to achieve the goal of strengthening the country and the Chinese nation by improving national health. Calisthenics, a simple, easy to promote and highly ritualistic group activity, helps to strengthen discipline and cohesion. Therefore, from the “military gymnastics” in the “military national movement” in the late Qing Dynasty, the “new life movement” and “new gymnastics” in the period of the People’s Republic of China, to the broadcast gymnastics of the People’s Republic of China, although the specific forms and learning objects constantly changed, the core was to achieve specific goals through gymnastics (either strong countries and nation, or sports to save the country, defeat the enemy, or serve national defense and economic construction). Especially in the national sports led by the CPC, the class nature of sports has been highlighted, and the popularization and universalness of sports have been realized. From the perspective of body politics, in modern times, sports, including broadcast gymnastics, not only improve the national physical health, but also have a guiding effect on individual thought, so as to complete the “shaping of new people” in both physical and mental aspects. As a scholar said, “In shaping new people for the revolution, the body can be the basis for ideological change, and any political measures acting on the mind must be completed via the body.”³⁹

 

The evolution of broadcast gymnastics and even modern sports in China highlights a core proposition in the field of health: the intrinsic relationship between the state and the citizens’ health. In other words, it is the boundary and effectiveness of the depth and intensity of the national support and intervention in citizens’ health. Since the late Qing Dynasty, the profound national humiliation and difficulties and arduous state building urgently require the state to do its best to develop the national body and promote the health of the people, “Develop the national productivity and national defense with the function of physical fitness, and use the symbol of sports to symbolize the function of national sovereignty and establish the national image.”⁴⁰ But as the state moves from extraordinary politics to daily administration, from state-building to state-governance, the state’s shaping of health of its citizens should also move from coercion or semi-coercion to empowerment or marketization. This process does not mean the complete withdrawal of public power, but the shift of public power from the front to behind the scenes, to provide a more adequate supply of the right to health and institutional protection. This trend and context can also be clarified from the evolution of the institutional form of broadcast gymnastics since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

 

 

From the first set of broadcast gymnastics in 1951 to the ninth set in 2011, broadcast gymnastics underwent complex changes, including technical adjustments (such as duration, soundtrack, amount of movement, difficulty of movement, number of movements and elements of movement, etc.) and adjustments to meet the needs of reality.⁴¹ For example, scholars have pointed out that the fourth set of broadcast gymnastics, implemented in 1963, was created following the policy of “adjustment, consolidation, enrichment and improvement”, which was the guiding principle of Chinese sports ideology after the Great Leap Forward. The fourth set was designed in line with the physical and psychological characteristics of students, reflecting the sports policy and strategic focus at that time.⁴² Another example is the “public broadcast gymnastics”, which was not included in the series but was originally prepared by the Tianjin Sports Bureau. Its promotion in Tianjin coincided with the social tension with the spread of SARS, so the set of gymnastics was welcomed by society. It was later named “public broadcast gymnastics” by the State General Administration of Sport and promoted nationwide. The changes of broadcast gymnastics have the following key factors: (1) The administrative positioning of broadcast gymnastics: The positioning of broadcast gymnastics given by the state determines how closely broadcast gymnastics fits into the system, and how much power and resources the state mobilizes to promote it; (2) the degree of public acceptance: Whether a set of broadcast gymnastics can be widely accepted and loved by the public depends not only on its difficulty and novelty, but also on the degree of public dependence on the system; (3) the competition in other  types of sports: There is a “free market” of mass sports, and in the absence of competition in other mass sports, broadcast gymnastics has a large influence and scope; otherwise, if the competition of mass sports gets fiercer, broadcast gymnastics may be marginalized.

 

According to the above three influencing factors, the institutional form of broadcast gymnastics during its changes can be divided into three stages. The institutional form refers to the system copy and the system path that broadcast gymnastics relies on in the design and promotion, which makes the system characteristics of broadcast gymnastics vary in different stages. Therefore, the classification is made not based on technical factors of gymnastics, but focuses on the internal relationship between broadcast gymnastics and national goals and public needs. In brief, the evolution of broadcast gymnastics over the past 70 years is compatible with three main institutional forms of “military simulation”, “administrative reinforcement” and “market competition”. The early broadcast gymnastics was modeled after the experience of military training and intended to reserve national defense forces through the “Labor & Defense System”. In the medium term, broadcast gymnastics further responded to the needs of the country, strengthened its administrative attributes, and enhanced people’s physical fitness through broadcast gymnastics to better provide human resources for economic construction. At present, broadcast gymnastics adopts the mode of market competition. Although broadcast gymnastics suits the needs of the market, it continues to be implemented in an administrative way. The general trend of keeping the progress of the institutional form of broadcast gymnastics is that the coercive force of the state is decreasing, so that broadcast gymnastics is promoted from administration to market competition.

 

 

The broadcast gymnastics in the form of “military simulation” started in 1951. It emphasized the service of sports for national defense construction, focused on the militarization of broadcast gymnastics, and had a strong militaristic feature in the design of the gymnastics movement. First, the severe situation of national defense in the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China provided a realistic basis for the “military simulation” of broadcast gymnastics. In 1950, Zhu De clarified in his speech at the preparatory meeting of the National Sports Federation that “now our sports cause must serve the people, and serve the interests of national defense and national health”. In the report National Sports for New Democracy made at this meeting, Feng Wenbin proposed that “our slogan is to develop sports for the people’s health, the construction of new democracy, and the national defense of people.”⁴³ This shows that the goals of sports established at that time were aimed at people’s health, state building, and national defense. Among them, a solid national defense is was the foundation for carrying out state building and realizing people’s health, and the health of the whole people is was a prerequisite for citizens to participate in the building and improvement of national defense. The promotion of broadcast gymnastics embodies  the above three goals. In November 1951, nine units, including the Organizing Committee of the National Sports Federation, jointly issued the Joint Notice on Implementing Broadcast Gymnastics Activities, which clarified that “the widespread implementation of broadcast gymnastics will help improve the health of the general public, generate their interest in participating in other sports activities, and create a strong body in order to better serve the economic, cultural and national defense building of the motherland.”⁴⁴ Especially in the context of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the development of sports and the implementation of broadcast gymnastics were given more of the feature of national defense: people were asked to promise to donate money to aid the DPRK in line with the “Patriotic Convention”, which later added a new line, “Ensure to do morning exercises every morning.”⁴⁵

 

Second, in the process of popularizing and mobilizing broadcast gymnastics, a quasi-military approach was adopted, which promoted the rapid popularity of the sport. In 1952, the Central People’s Government Committee set up the State Sports Commission and appointed Marshal He Long as its director, taking into account Marshal He Long’s “long-term military career, paying special attention to physical exercise to enhance the physique of officers and soldiers and improve the fighting capacity to widely spread this sports consciousness. Doing well in the sports of the People’s Republic of China requires attaching importance to making sports important for all people at the very start.”⁴⁶ This shows that the reason why the decision- makers appointed a high-level military attaché as the person in charge of the national sports authorities was to use his successful experience of military training in national sports, so as to improve the people’s physical fitness in a short period of time. In the early days, a considerable part of the staff of the State Sports Commission came from the army. “He Long decisively employed a group of cadres who had been engaged in sports in the army and the southwest region to work in the organs of the State Sports Commission.”⁴⁷ They quickly joined the newly-established posts of the commission. Therefore, from the institutional setup to personnel allocation, the commission in its early phase had an obvious touch of militarization.

 

Third, the popularization of broadcast gymnastics had an obvious feature of militarization as well. For example, the first set of broadcast gymnastics focused more on advocacy and publicity, while the second set (1954) promoted after the establishment of the State Sports Commission was clearly mandatory. In particular, primary and secondary school students were required to practice broadcast gymnastics. To this end, in March 1954, the Government Administration Council issued the Notice on the Development of Work Exercises and other Sports in Government Organs, requiring all bodies in the country to spare 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon to exercise and mobilize all employees to participate. In August 1954, the  Central Sports Commission, together with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Bureau of Broadcasting, and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, issued the Joint Instruction on the Implementation of Juvenile Broadcast Gymnastics in Primary Schools Nationwide, requiring the implementation of this gymnastics in primary schools across the county starting from the first semester of 1954. The administrative organs of education at all levels and the administrative leaders of each primary school were also asked to attach importance to this work, and implement the instruction in a planned manner in each primary school based on the actual situation of each region and school.⁴⁸ The above examples show that the second set in 1954 adopted a semi-compulsory approach, showing stronger militaristic characteristics.

 

In the end, broadcast gymnastics in the form of “military simulation” absorbs a lot of military commands and movement elements in the design, making broadcast gymnastics have many characteristics of “military gymnastics”. In particular, the second set (1954) began to adopt military commands such as “At ease” and “Attention”, while in the first set, only “Attention” was used as a preparatory position, without “At Ease” and other movements.⁴⁹ Broadcast gymnastics pursues standardization and unity in the training process, so that each individual in it directly feels the power of the collective, and also gets more power, identity and physical and mental pleasure from this collective ritual, so as to build “a productive and disciplined body”.⁵⁰ Some scholars vividly pointed out that “broadcast gymnastics was born more like a kind of body politics, which cleverly linked the national will, the soul and the sense of collective belonging, and in the process of doing exercises, the individual melted into the collective, as if to announce to the world that the People’s Republic of China under collectivism was completely rid of the ‘sick man of East Asia’”.⁵¹ While the “military simulation” of broadcast gymnastics is not the only way to accomplish collective action, there is no doubt that this militaristic overtone contributed to the rapid popularity of broadcast gymnastics. Unlike pure military training, broadcast gymnastics needs to maintain a balance between military and recreational. If the degree of militarization is too high, the scope of participation and enthusiasm of the public will be reduced, and the widespread participation of broadcast gymnastics cannot be guaranteed. On the other hand, if it is too entertaining, broadcast gymnastics may degenerate into fitness activities for ordinary citizens, and cannot realize the administrative value it carries. Some scholars interpret this feature of broadcast gymnastics as a “ritual and music ceremony”, which not only maintains the seriousness and order of broadcast gymnastics, but also provides a channel for entertainment and leisure. “Both have the dual connotation of authoritative admonition and the joy of all people. They live together in the same culture and share the task of maintaining the integrity, stability and cohesion of the state, society and people”.⁵²

 

 

The broadcast gymnastics in the form of “administrative reinforcement” was officially formed in the third set of broadcast gymnastics in 1957, and has been continuously developed and strengthened in the following decades, making it closely integrated with the real needs. The “administrative reinforcement” can be regarded as the daily version of the “military model”: it weakens the military element and the national defense purpose of broadcast gymnastics, but increases the administration. The third set is a breakthrough in both originality and administration. The first two sets had obvious quality of reference (the first set was directly derived from Soviet and Japanese experience, and the second was designed with the help of Soviet experts). The third set was more original. As far as the design of gymnastics movements is concerned, this set “takes in some movements of our national sports (such as martial arts), and is an art with a strong national style.”⁵³ Moreover, the third set embodied stronger administrative feature and symbolic significance, which further strengthened the administrative quality of broadcast gymnastics. The movements designed by the third set, partly derived from the labor of workers and peasants, are called “the movement language of workers, peasants and soldiers” the fourth section “forward bending 

movement” (the exercisers are as if cheering up, and make a “chichi” sound) and the seventh section “whole body exercise” (two people stand face to face, pulling and pushing like “sawing”)⁵⁴.

 

The fourth set was officially released in 1963 and for the first time had a name, “The Time is Summoning”. The fourth set had versions for ethnic minorities, too, that is, wall charts and records were published, produced and released in Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan and Uyghur characters and languages at the same time. In order to generate young students’ interest in broadcast gymnastics, the fourth set innovated in designing movements: left arm oblique forward lift, and right arm oblique back down lift, breaking the conventional “horizontal and vertical”.⁵⁵ Meanwhile, the fourth set followed the administrative characteristics as well, transforming the labor scenario of workers and farmers into gymnastics, so that physical exercise functioned as a part of labor, and a healthy body created physical conditions for continued labor. So in this set of broadcast gymnastics, two sections of movements were designed to imitate the farmers sowing and the workers forging iron.⁵⁶ It fully reflected the “administrative reinforcement” of broadcast gymnastics at this stage, “imposing discipline and restriction on the body, so that the body becomes part of the national resources or wealth, and the individual body not only carries the rights and freedoms of the individual, but  also takes the mission and responsibility of the country.”⁵⁷ Even so, the real spread of the fourth set did not last long, and it was soon replaced by the “quotations gymnastics” with more political connotation after the beginning of the “cultural revolution”.⁵⁸

 

According to the “May 12 Order” in 1968, the system of sports commission was taken over by the military, that is, it was supervised by the Military Commission. After the sports commission was put under military control, the promotion of broadcast gymnastics lost its institutional feature. After the National Sports Work Conference in 1971, the State Sports Commission was again under the jurisdiction of the State Council, and military administration was still implemented below the provincial level. In 1973, the State Council required the establishment and improvement of sports committees at and above the county level, abolished the military management of sports committees, and established the Sports Bureau, which restored the organizational system of sports committees and began to exercise management functions.⁵⁹ In the institutional form of “administrative reinforcement”, whether broadcast gymnastics can be promoted smoothly as a mass sport depends on the promotion of sports authorities to a large extent. During the short period (1968-1971) when the sports commission was under military control, it could still use “military simulation” and “whole nation system” to concentrate on promoting the development of competitive sports, but it lacked the mobilization experience and institutional foundation to organize and promote mass sports. Therefore, for the National Sports Work Conference in 1971, Premier Zhou Enlai made instructions affirming the achievements of sports work after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.⁶⁰ The re-establishment of the system led to the introduction of the fifth set in September 1971 (although it had been in production since 1969). As the only one born during the “cultural revolution”, this set was steeped in politics and began straight with political slogans.

 

In the observation and analysis of broadcast gymnastics in the form of “administrative reinforcement”, it is easy to overlook a basic problem: The wide popularization of wired and wireless broadcasting was a necessary condition for the large-scale promotion of broadcast gymnastics after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. “With the continuous development of broadcast radio network, broadcast gymnastics has gradually expanded to counties and rural areas.”⁶¹ This ability to mobilize via “technological empowerment” is further reinforced in China’s vast territory and multitiered government structure. In essence, the popularization of this technology and equipment for China at that time meant not only the innovation of communications,  but more importantly, the mobilization of the body becoming much easier. In the past, the mobilization of the body was limited to the elite or urban residents, but now it was easy to reach every corner under the administration through radio waves. All classes, cities and villages were included in the process of physical mobilization and transformation. If we compare the body shaping of the “New Life Movement” in the People’s Republic of China, we can find that the “New Life Movement” was not good in terms of popularity and mobilization ability and even had to rely on police enforcement to implement it.⁶² Moreover, broadcast gymnastics was more successful in mobilizing depth and scope, which was due to not only the change in the nature of the regime, but also the communication technology and organizational skills. Through broadcast gymnastics, an easily perceived sense of community was formed, which can be more vividly expressed as: When the overture for broadcast gymnastics on China National Radio sounded, each individual doing broadcast gymnastics was in contact with the country and working around a common national goal. As an editorial of the People’s Daily pointed out, broadcast gymnastics is not a “side issue” or an “extra burden”, “If we combine the physical exercise with the great and heavy work of building and defending the motherland, we will realize that this sport has a rich ideological connotation.”⁶³

 

 

After the reform and opening-up, with the popularization of multi-sports, the relaxation of government control and the decline of the unit system, the administrative feature of broadcast gymnastics gradually faded, and the form of “market competition” took shape. Some scholars have summarized the factors affecting the rise and fall of broadcast gymnastics, including the change of government functions (from all-in-one government to service-oriented government), the development of market economy (directive promotion is not suitable for private enterprises), and the development of mass media (the audience of radio is decreasing ), the variety of sports (there are more and more fitness programs to choose from), and the status quo of broadcast gymnastics (each set of broadcast gymnastics varies in difficulty).⁶⁴

 

These influencing factors all featured in the promotion of the sixth set of broadcast gymnastics in 1981. As the broadcast gymnastics in transition, the sixth set embodied the dual domination of administrative and market logic in its promotion. (1) On the eve of the official promotion of the sixth set, the General Office of the State Council issued On Reaffirming the 1954 Notice of the Government Administration Council on the Development of Work-break Exercises and Other Sports in State Organs, proposing that “governments at all levels should strengthen the leadership of  physical education, and promote broadcast gymnastics in state organs.”⁶⁵ It provides the system guarantee for this new version of broadcast gymnastics. (2) The use of administrative methods to promote the new version of broadcast gymnastics has been given multiple meanings in the context of reform and opening-up and socialist construction, including reflecting the superiority of the system and enhancing the sense of national identity. An article in the People’s Daily pointed out that “such a call by the government, with the use of modern broadcasting means, organized and led to carry out and popularize gymnastics activities among millions of people across the country, is a pioneering work in the history of mass sports activities, reflecting the superiority of our socialist system”, and “millions of people nationwide exercise in unison to the sound of radio music, which is itself a manifestation of vigor and vitality, and will have a positive effect on uplifting the national spirit”.⁶⁶ (3) Even with strong administrative support, broadcast gymnastics was influenced and impacted by other fitness programs. For example, an article in the People’s Daily in 1988 said that “disco has been integrated into our cultural life in many ways, not to mention the opening of commercially-used dance halls, which is almost unique to disco; “rhythmic gymnastics based on disco movements has also emerged everywhere to replace broadcast gymnastics, which was established in the past 30 years.”⁶⁷ This suggests that even with administrative support, broadcast gymnastics, a sport with a staid, collective memory, was bound to suffer under the impact of a new wave of fitness. (4) Under the domination of the market model, both the broadcasting time of the radio station and the working time of the employees of the enterprise have become commodities with economic value. “Since the mid-1980s, the central and local radio stations have removed broadcast gymnastics programs, coupled with the emergence of a large number of non-public economies and the increase of continuous production industries in the process of China’s reform & opening-up and socialist modernization. This model of physical exercise with Chinese characteristics is gradually being ignored.”⁶⁸

 

However, it should be noted that broadcast gymnastics in the form of “market competition” is developed simultaneously in two dimensions of marketization and administration: On the one hand, broadcast gymnastics strives to renew itself to respond to the diverse needs of the public; On the other hand, with the help of administrative power, broadcast gymnastics is included in the national planning of national fitness. In 1990, the State Sports Commission launched the “seventh set of broadcast gymnastics”, which largely followed the rules of the market and catered to the changes in people’s aesthetic taste: Invited the famous gymnast Li Ning to be a model and make wall charts; in response to the onslaught of foreign disco, caliscalics and traditional tai chi, qigong and martial arts, the seventh set was designed with more complex movements. By the time the eighth set was promoted in 1997, the competition seemed clear in  result — Wu Shaozu, the then-director of the State Sports Commission, believed that the idea of using the new broadcast gymnastics to beat other sports was the worst, and pointed out that broadcast gymnastics was not the only form of fitness, and in some sports, broadcast gymnastics may only play a role of warm-up.⁶⁹ It, in fact, acknowledges that broadcast gymnastics does not take a superior position, and is essentially a “weak physical sport”, which was largely a warm-up exercise. In other words, the sporting side of broadcast gymnastics kept weakening, while its own administrative characteristics were in the spotlight. As pointed out by scholars, “Broadcast gymnastics has some characteristics of being ritualistic, imaginary, imaginative, feminine, suitable for children and the elderly, and non-competitive since its birth. Such signs of broadcast gymnastics become its hidden value independent of the value system of physical education.”⁷⁰

 

The latest version of the broadcast gymnastics is the ninth set launched in 2011, which fully considers market factors and adds a number of new elements. (1) The ninth set changes the practice of the previous eight sets that it is the male who gives the word of command. This means that the residual “military simulation” of broadcast gymnastics is almost all eliminated and becomes a “relaxed” civilian fitness program. (2) In terms of the soundtrack of broadcast gymnastics, rhythmic changes and electro-acoustic instruments are added to traditional folk music, which is more fashionable and full of the sense of the times. Such a more contemporary approach to music means that the administrative function of broadcast gymnastics is weakened, after all, the sense of ritual, discipline and collective identity that broadcast gymnastics creates is largely achieved through the “sense of collective engagement” brought about by politicized music. However, the new wave music does not play a prominent role in this regard. (3) High-fives and shouts were added to broadcast gymnastics. “People exercising in the square can shout with the instruction, so as to make themselves relaxed and achieve the effect of integrating human voice and music.”⁷¹ This enhanced the entertainment of broadcast gymnastics, making it seem no longer significantly different from other group gymnastics events.

 

However, broadcast gymnastics in the form of “market competition” has not totally abandoned its administrative characteristics, but is further dependent on the national education system and fitness program. In August 1991, the State Education Commission issued the Code of Daily Conduct for Primary School Students, which clearly requires primary school students to “actively participate in beneficial cultural and sports activities, and seriously do broadcast gymnastics and eye exercises.” In June 1995, nine departments, including the State Sports Commission, the State Education Commission, the Ministry of Radio and Television and the Ministry of Health, jointly issued the Notice on Persisting in the Development of Broadcast Gymnastics, decided to resume the broadcast gymnastics program on China National Radio, and demanded factories, mines, enterprises and institutions to resume the work-break  exercises, and schools to continue to insist on doing morning exercises and classbreak exercises, making the broadcast gymnastics activities at the work break and class break as concrete actions to implement the national fitness plan.⁷² Taking the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as an opportunity, in May 2007, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Opinions on Strengthening Youth Sports and Enhancing Youth Physical Fitness, requiring “the full implementation of the system of sports activities at the class break, and a unified arrangement of 25 to 30 minutes of sports activities between classes every morning, and the well organization of students to do well in broadcast gymnastics and collective sports activities”⁷³ Amid the demand for national fitness, broadcast gymnastics has been included in the national fitness program. In August 2009, the State Council promulgated the Regulations on National Fitness, which clearly stipulates that “schools shall, in accordance with the provisions of the Sports Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Regulations on School Sports Work, organize and implement physical education classes according to the age, gender and physical condition of students”, carry out sports activities such as broadcast gymnastics and eye health exercises to guide in students’ physical exercise and improve their physical fitness.” In July 2012, the State Council issued the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for the National Basic Public Service System, which further requires “actively promoting broadcast gymnastics, work-break exercises and other scientific and effective methods of national fitness, and widely carrying out various forms of mass sports for the public”.⁷⁴ In December 2019, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed the Law on the Promotion of Basic Medical Care and Health, which clearly stipulates in legal form for the first time that “schools shall offer physical education and health courses as per regulations, and organize students to carry out activities such as broadcast gymnastics, eye exercises, and physical exercise.” All the legislation and policies emphasize broadcast gymnastics as an important form of students’ physical exercise and national fitness, which indicates that even broadcast gymnastics in the form of market competition maintains a close relationship with the administrative system, and keeps relying on administrative power for promotion. Even in some cases, it needs to depend on the mode of “performance evaluation” for promotion. For example, the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions requires all units to popularize work-break exercises, and all state-owned enterprises and 70% of organs and institutions participate in work-break exercises, which is one of the assessment indicators for the heads of the units.⁷⁵

 

 

Based on the above analysis of the three institutional forms of broadcast gymnastics, it shows that broadcast gymnastics, as a national shaping project for people’s health, has far more implications than fitness sports, and has become a state action embedded in China’s governance. Whether it is the national defense in the form of “military simulation”, the state building in the form of “administrative reinforcement”, or the two-way response of market and administration under the current “market competition”, broadcast gymnastics has become a mechanism link between the state will and individual health. As scholars have indicated, “The body is a microcosm of the nation, class, gender, and moral ideology where it is, and throughout the history of the PRC, the discourse on the body has been directed to serve national politics”.⁷⁶ It should be noted that the significance of the above discussion is not to deconstruct the value implications of broadcast gymnastics, but to ultimately lead to a normative proposition: in the context of the modern rule of law, how should we determine the limits of the state’s shaping of citizens’ physical health?

 

 

The transformation of the institutional form from “administrative reinforcement” to “market competition” can also be understood as the process of transformation from undertaking to industry and from policy to right. The omnipotent physical domination by the state no longer exists, but the government has not withdrawn (and will by no means withdraw) completely from shaping the bodies of citizens.⁷⁷ In this process, the market mechanism and individual citizens gain the initiative to shape a healthy body, and the state provides an institutional environment for the realization of the right to health of citizens by regulating physical consumption, providing good medical and health security, advocating a healthy lifestyle and other means. As far as the administrative and legal responsibilities of the modern state are concerned, the state has an important duty to safeguard the right to health of its citizens. “It is one of the characteristics of modernization to liberate health from the realm of religion and charity and to recognize it as an essential element of state action and a civil right.”⁷⁸

 

 

In order to define various concepts more accurately, this paper adopts two sets of variables to simply distinguish the relevant categories of health problems. (1) The purpose of shaping health: in the context of collectivism, the healthy body of the citizen is not only for the individual, but linked to the overall goal of the state. “Humans are endowed with the sacred aura of revolution and the ideal code of politics, and the individual existence and the exertion of the physical power, the prosperity of the whole  nation and the political ambition are closely linked.”⁷⁹ In contrast, in the context of individualism, health is entirely a private matter for the individual or the family, and the state does not interfere with the health of its citizens, nor does it assume the responsibility of maintaining a healthy environment for its people. (2) Means of shaping health: In the form of “administrative reinforcement”, the way to promote the right to health of citizens mainly relies on administrative methods such as administrative mobilization, political performance assessment or even administrative orders, to improve the physical quality of the whole people. However, in the form of market competition, the development of citizens’ health conditions is mainly promoted through market-oriented means. “The original power or social history has constantly required the body to produce and use the body as an instrument to produce, but now the requirements are different, and now it is constantly making the body an object of consumption. At this time, the way power organizes the body and changes the body varies, which has to create the needs of the body, sometimes even false needs, to make the body a consumer good.”⁸⁰

 

Based on the above two variables, you can distinguish the following four types of ways to achieve health (see Figure 1). (1) National health projects: they aim at the overall interests of the country, and are mainly implemented by administrative means, and the overall responsibility of the state in safeguarding and promoting the health of citizens is clearly defined. The provisions of Article 21 of the Constitution of China on state medical and health undertaking and sports undertaking fall into this category. The first article “Legislative Purpose” of the Law on the Promotion of Basic Medical Care and Health also clearly stipulates that “the Law is formulated in accordance with the Constitution to develop medical care and health undertaking, ensure citizens’ access to basic medical and health services, improve their health and promote the construction of a healthy China”. The national health projects determine the possible space for the development of the social health industry, and also determine the scope and degree of citizens’ health rights to a certain extent. (2) Citizens’ health rights: the ultimate goal is to protect the health of individual citizens, but the way of realization is more important than the public payment of the government (mainly manifested as beneficial right). In this type, the health of citizens not only serves the grand national goal, and the object and carrier of commodity consumption, but also means the personal dignity and free development of individuals on the basis of good health. For example, Article 4 of the Law on the Promotion of Basic Medical Care and Health, stipulating that “the state and society respect and protect the right to health of citizens”, falls into this category. (3) Civic health consumption: individual health is mainly realized through market-oriented means, which is reflected in reality as the purchase of services from commercial fitness venues and medical institutions. In the type of civic health consumption, the individual’s body is no longer under the influence of administration, but is instead at the mercy of the market and consumerism. “Especially after the outbreak of the pandemic, people’s health concept has been further enhanced, the awareness of  healthy lifestyle has been significantly improved, and the demand for health consumption has increased significantly.” In response to this trend, it is necessary to guide the whole society to have a big health concept, innovate big health technology, develop a big health industry, improve big health services, better promote health consumption, and improve people’s health level and quality of life.”⁸¹ (4) Social health industry: It operates in a market-oriented way to form a stable and mature health industry, but the country needs to strictly manage and regulate the health market. The development of the health industry provides multiple opportunities for the realization of the right to health. Unlike national health projects, which have a strong political connotation, the social health industry needs to be supervised and regulated by the state in terms of administration and management. For example, the “Healthy China 2030” Planning Outline issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council proposes to “establish a health industry system with a complete system and optimized structure, form a group of large enterprises with strong innovation ability and international competitiveness, and become a pillar industry of the national economy.”⁸² It is difficult to find an “ideal type” in reality as per the above four types of health, which are intertwined with each other, and jointly constitute the health path participated by the state, the society, the market and the individual, with characteristics of both administration and market.
 

 

 

 

The two-dimensional quadrants of “state-individual” and “administration-market” are particularly vividly reflected in the provisions of Article 45, paragraph 1, of China’s Constitution on the “right to material assistance”: “Citizens of the People’s  Republic of China shall have the right to material assistance from the state and society when they are old, ill or unable to work. The State develops the undertakings such as social insurance, social relief and medical health necessary for citizens to enjoy these rights.” This stipulation has rich connotations in the context of health. 

 

(1) It takes the form of fundamental rights of citizens, including the right to material claims for the restoration of health and maintenance of life in a state of illness, which clearly points to the “citizens’ health rights” discussed above. (2) The object of material claims in the field of health is the “dual subject structure”, which includes both the state and society. “This article and the previous article have several places where the words state and society appear. The Constitution stipulates that social security is the obligation of the state, and here the society is also written to encourage social organizations to assume obligations for social security and make contributions.”⁸³ Moreover, Article 21 of the Constitution also clarifies that “rural collective economic organizations, state enterprises and institutions and subdistrict offices shall be encouraged and supported to organize various medical and health facilities, carry out mass health activities, and protect people’s health.” In the form of implementations, social organizations are encouraged to provide material supplies to the right to health, which include social charity and public welfare assistance, and more importantly, the government is required to purchase public health services from society. For example, the Notice of the Ministry of Finance on the Key Work of the Reform of Government Purchase of Services in 2022 proposes to increase the government’s purchase of public health services and improve its ability to respond to public health emergencies. These all point to the “social health industry”. (3) The medical and health care undertaking developed by the State stipulated in the second sentence of this article clarifies the national obligations in realizing the right to health of citizens and implements the establishment of various institutional safeguards for the State. This phrase, together with Article 14 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “the State shall establish and improve a social security system commensurate with the level of economic development”, and Article 21, which stipulates that “the State undertakes to develop health care...and protect people’s health”, refers to the “type of national health projects”. (4) Although this article does not address the consumption of health by citizens, Article 15 of the Constitution provides for a “system of market economy”, which means that citizens certainly have the right to improve their health by purchasing health services. “In the logic of marketization, the body is incorporated into the new political discourse, and consumerism began to dominate people’s lives, with the body being a consumer and being consumed.”⁸⁴ It can be seen that China’s Constitution is compatible with the four main types of keeping health, among which national health projects play a leading role, reflecting the basic status and guiding significance of the state in the process of safeguarding and promoting citizens’ health.

 

It is important to emphasize that, despite the difference in objectives between national health projects and citizens’ health rights, they are very closely related. The national health projects usually only determine the long-term planning and overall protection of the country in the field of health, which cannot fully correspond to the specific health claims of citizens at present. However, national health projects can steadily provide institutional supplies, continuously enrich the contents of citizens’ health rights, form specific and predictable claims, and grant judicial remedies under certain circumstances.⁸⁵ “The ultimate goal of the policy provisions of the General Outline of the Constitution and the chapter on Fundamental Rights is to provide material and institutional guarantees for the implementation of citizens’ rights.”⁸⁶ This transformation mechanism is mainly formed through legislation, that is, the legislature converts national health projects into citizens’ health rights successively according to the judgment balance between supply capacity and supply demand. For example, the primary legislative purpose of the Law on the Promotion of Basic Medical Care and Health is to “implement the provisions of the Constitution on the national development of the medical and health undertakings and the protection of people’s health.”⁸⁷ The current national health projects stipulated in China’s Constitution include at least the social security system (Article 14), medical and health undertakings (Article 21), the development of medical and medical undertakings (Article 21), the encouragement and support of social organizations to run medical and health facilities (Article 21), mass health activities (Article 21), sports undertaking (Article 21), protection of the environment (Article 26), etc. In response to these policies on national health projects, the legislature has enacted such health laws and regulations as the Social Insurance Law, the Law on the Promotion of Basic Medical Care and Health, the Law on Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, the Mental Health Law, the Law on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases, the Sports Law, and the Environmental Protection Law. The national health projects shall be implemented to complete the process of health empowerment of citizens. Of course, the initiative of transforming national health projects into citizens’ health rights is taken by the government, that is, the government should comprehensively consider the necessity, urgency and legislative technology of transformation. “The realization of this right first needs to rely on the initiative of the state and society, and only when the state does not act or does not act enough, citizens can request the court to intervene and provide them with individualized protection relief.”⁸⁸

 

 

In the reality of the overall influence and intervention of state power in the field  of health, it is necessary to carefully delineate the boundary of state power in health shaping. This is not a special problem facing China, but a general problem in the field of the right to health. In other words, is the right to health an individual right or a collective right? Scholars believe that the core value of the right to health is universal social solidarity, and any country must implement some “rationing” of medical resources to achieve maximum and sustainable health coverage. It means limiting the right to health of individuals, which is often seen as a collective right associated with citizenship; more recently, however, there has been a tendency to regard the right to health as an absolute right granted to the individual, but this may endanger the principle of mutual solidarity.⁸⁹ The key problem in judging the nature of the right to health is that if the right to health is limited to the medical and health field, the limited total amount of medical resources and the scarcity of supply determine that the state’s intervention in the right to health is bound to be comprehensive and in-depth. At this time, the right to health is presented more as the collective right; however, if the scope of the right to health is expanded to sports, national fitness, environmental governance and other aspects, there will not necessarily be a zero-sum game of resource gains and losses, and it can better reflect the characteristics of individual rights. In particular, some sports and health education with low threshold, high popularity rate, strong substitutability and low resource consumption should be based on social autonomy, market regulation and industry self-discipline, without excessive intervention by the state — broadcast gymnastics actually belongs to this type, and direct intervention by the state should be minimized. The state can guide the development of broadcast gymnastics in flexible ways such as setting scientific standards and providing complete information.

 

As an individual, the right to health is generally classified as a social right. “According to the nature of social rights, the right to health mainly means that the state is required to take positive measures to provide protection for the gradual realization of citizens’ health rights.”⁹⁰ As per the functional system theory of basic rights, the right to health has both a subjective rights orientation and an objective value order orientation.⁹¹ On the one hand, as a subjective right, the right to health mainly presents the function of payment, that is, citizens’ right to request the state or society to provide health public goods, health information and health services. At the same time, the right to health also has the function of the right to defense, that is, to exclude the improper intervention of the state or society in the right to health. “There are two typical forms of expression, one is the behavior and habits related to the right to health in daily life, and so on, the other is that the right to health subjects freely choose the way of medical treatment and voluntarily bear the consequences of risk.”⁹² Therefore, in terms of subjective rights, broadcast gymnastics under the mode of “market competition” can be regarded as a public health product provided by the state for citizens with general physical fitness. Citizens have the right to choose broadcast gymnastics, but they can also choose other methods that are better suited to their health needs based on their right to defense. 

 

On the other hand, as an objective value order, the right to health is mainly embodied in the state protection obligation and institutional guarantee, “pointing to the state and government to ensure that people can enjoy a healthy environment, so as to provide the most basic possibility and guarantee for the enjoyment of health, such as the provision of drugs, health facilities, medical services.”⁹³ The state protection obligation in the field of the right to health mainly includes three levels: respect, protection and realization. The obligation of respect requires that the State should not deny or restrict anyone’s equal access to preventive, curative and palliative medical services, and should refrain from implementing discriminatory measures; the obligation of protection requires States to adopt legislative and other measures to ensure equal access to medical and health-related services provided by third parties and to ensure that third parties do not restrict access to health-related information and services; the obligation of realization requires that the State should recognize the right to health in the existing policy and legal system, and adopt positive measures to enable individuals and communities to enjoy the right to health.⁹⁴ In addition, the State obligation to the right to health usually includes an equality and non-discrimination obligation, that is, to guarantee equality in access to health resources,⁹⁵ and the obligation to ensure the participation of the people in national legislation and decision-making on health, aimed at ensuring the right of everyone to health through an open and transparent process of participation.⁹⁶ The institutional guarantee for the right to health requires the state to establish an institutional system that matches the realization of the right to health. The existing public health system, the public health emergency response system, the prevention and treatment system of infectious diseases, occupational and chronic diseases, the mental health service system, the national fitness system, the environmental governance system, the tobacco control system, the food and drug safety system, and the special health arrangements for specific groups or specific regions, etc. can be regarded as the institutional guarantee for the right to health.⁹⁷ Even government incentives and support for research and development of medical science and technology can be included in the institutional guarantee for the right to health.⁹⁸ Therefore, in terms of the objective value order, broadcast gymnastics, as an integral  part of the national health undertaking, is reflected in the overall planning and promotion of citizens’ health by the state, and represents the state obligation and institutional guarantee for the right to health.

 

 

Based on the above discussion, the boundaries of state intervention in the right to health can be tentatively established. The first step should be to make it clear that individual citizens, instead of the state, are the subject of the right to health. As stipulated in the Law on the Promotion of Basic Medical Care and Health, “Citizens are the first responsible person for their own health”, which reflects an advanced concept of human rights and establishes the subjective value of the right to health of citizens. According to the normative construction of the right to health, the following principles can be roughly determined: (1) The defense aspect of the right to health generally excludes state intervention, and the state shall not infringe upon the physical health of citizens. For example, the prohibition of torture and inhuman punishment, the prohibition of drug testing without the consent of the subjects, the prohibition of government engaging in or participating in activities that pollute the environment, and the prohibition of government engaging in or participating in commercial activities that affect the health of citizens. Even if an elected legislature restricts a citizen’s right to health defense, it must satisfy the prerequisites of “the manner of restriction” (legal reservation) and “the reason for restriction” (public interest).⁹⁹ (2) The beneficial orientation of the right to health benefits directly links to the state’s payment measures, such as requesting the state to provide basic medical assistance, emergency medical measures, free basic vaccination, necessary maternal and child health care, etc. to achieve the minimum health of citizens. (3) The social health industry also needs to be serious. The boundaries of state power need to be defined: On the one hand, the state should regulate the development of the health industry to ensure that the health industry will not endanger health, hinder the realization of health, and monopolize health resources; on the other hand, it is necessary to fully respect the law of the market, so as not to end the autonomy and enthusiasm of the industry. As Article 13 of the Administrative Licensing Law states, “Where citizens, legal persons or other organizations are able to decide on their own, where market competition mechanisms can be effectively regulated, or where trade organizations or intermediaries are able to self-regulate, the government should not arbitrarily intervene in ‘health industries’ that can be solved by other administrative methods such as post-facto supervision”. (4) Compared with the social health industry, civic health consumption has greater autonomy. The state can guide citizens to establish rational and mature healthy consumption concepts through advocacy, but it should not be mandatory or prohibited. However, the state is not doing nothing in the field of health consumption, but needs to use the government’s management authority and guidance ability for promotion.

 

There are complex “power-right” relationships in the field of health, which include national health projects, citizens’ health rights, social health industry and civic health consumption. Among them, national health projects, as the overall planning layout for the health of the whole people, feature basic functions and status. The broadcast gymnastics campaign which has been carried out in our country for more than seventy years is an important part of national health projects, reflecting ideas and methods of the national formation of the right to health. In the context of current market development and national fitness, developing and innovating broadcast gymnastics involves adjusting its relationship with the overall objectives of the state and individual citizens’ needs. It involves balancing the use of administrative and market methods, continually innovating sports programs of broadcast gymnastics that better suit the public diverse needs, actively participating in the competition of the fitness market, and gaining growth and development. As the relevant review pointed out, “this form of exercise, which has accompanied the people from the planned economy to the era of market economy, has laid a solid foundation for the national physique and socialist sports undertaking, and has made a good start for national fitness, and finally returned to the individual, becoming a sports activity for the ordinary people, and a diversified way of fitness”.¹⁰⁰ After the new century, thegovernment-promoted broadcast gymnastics innovation or revival movement reflected this trend in some aspects. For example, in 2007, the Ministry of Education promoted a unified campus group dance, which had support from more than 70% of primary and secondary school students;¹⁰¹ in the “China Top Ten Livelihood Decisions for Overall Well-off 2010” selected by the Xiaokang magazine, “Beijing Resumption of Broadcast Gymnastics” ranked first.¹⁰² All these examples show that the current development of broadcast gymnastics and shaping the health of citizens require the right to health orientation of citizens and continuous provision of high-quality and diversified national health plans.

 

 

After the aforementioned discussion on the historical origins, institutional forms, and legal issues of broadcast gymnastics provides an insight into the development of mass sports in China. In the modern era, the history of physical fitness has been narrated connected to “national humiliation”, which has resulted in the liberation of the body from the constraints of ethics and morality, allowing it to become a true representation of a citizen. Additionally, the realistic task of promoting citizen health has been added to the goal of developing and shaping the citizen’s body. After the reform and opening-up, broadcast gymnastics entered the mode of “market competition”. The broadcast gymnastics constantly adapts to the changing administrative environment and social needs, and strives to adjust its relationship with administration and market, which ensures the continuity of its own development. The historical and practical observations of broadcast gymnastics help us to determine the relationship between the state and citizens in the field of health, and to construct a doctrinal system of the right to health. Thus, the two paradigms of the right to health (empirical research and doc trinal construction) are communicated and connected. In the field of health, based on the ends and means of shaping health, the way to achieve health can be divided into four quadrants: national health projects, citizens’ health rights, civic health consumption, and social health industry on a relatively clear normative basis in the China’s Constitution. It can be reflected in the transition from health undertaking to the right to health. State intervention in citizens’ health rights and civic health consumption has been gradually reduced. Therefore, citizens’ right to health has both a subjective rights orientation (including benefit aspect and defense aspect) and an objective value order orientation (including state protection obligation and institutional guarantee), thus establishing the individual’s subject status in terms of their right to health. In various types of health and functional systems that aim to promote the right to health, the government has various ways of expressing its power and areas of influence. Ultimately, the goal is to achieve both national and individual health simultaneously, which is the message conveyed by Zhu De in his inscription for broadcast gymnastics, “endeavoring to improve people’s health”.¹⁰³

 

(Translated by XU Chao)

 

 *  WANG Liwan ( 王理万 ), Associate Professor at the Institute for Human Rights, China University of Political Science and Law, and a Qian Duansheng young scholar. This paper is the stage achievement of the National Social Science Foundation’s key project “Research on the New Forms of Human Rights Civilization in China” (Project No. 21AZD095) and the major project “Research on General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Expositions on Human Rights” (Project No. 20JJD820002) of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.

 

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