Medical cooperation has grown into one of the steadiest channels for people-to-people exchange between Suzhou and Arab countries, and much of it runs through Suzhou Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Its long-running partnership with Marrakech has become a working template for how traditional medicine can carry a sister-city relationship forward.
Since 2017, the hospital has used traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, as a bridge to deepen ties with Marrakech, carrying out practical exchanges through high-level visits, academic seminars, personnel training and cultural displays while expanding the international reach of the Wumen school of TCM.
What began with one hospital has widened into cooperation among medical institutions in both cities, opening a path to closer people-to-people bonds through traditional medicine.
In August 2017, a Marrakech vice-mayor and his delegation visited the hospital, touring specialties including acupuncture and massage. The two sides held in-depth discussions on training TCM practitioners, legal safeguards for TCM practice and hospital management, marking the start of regular exchanges between medical institutions in the two cities.
Two years later, a Suzhou delegation returned the visit, meeting local government and health authorities to present progress in inheriting and developing the Wumen school. The delegation also surveyed the foundations for and application of TCM in Morocco, laying a basis for continued cooperation.
Momentum built from there. In December 2024, a senior official of the Suzhou health commission led a TCM delegation to Marrakech for cultural exchanges, meeting officials responsible for foreign affairs and public health and reaching agreement on cooperation in TCM diagnosis and treatment as well as joint efforts to promote TCM culture.
A year later, at the invitation of the Marrakech city government, the commission again organized a group of TCM experts, this time for a visit to the Republic of Congo and Morocco.
With medical services as the vehicle and cultural exchange as the bond, the delegation held exhibitions and seminars, offered free consultations and donated TCM supplies at both stops.
The visit doubled as a showcase for the Wumen school of TCM. The delegation gave a systematic presentation of its medical system, highlighting distinctive therapies and results in orthopedics, sports rehabilitation and internal medicine, and drew up a clearer plan for future cooperation.
During the Morocco leg of the trip, the delegation visited the Mohammed VI University Hospital, one of Marrakech's largest hospitals, for academic exchanges that led to an agreement in principle on medical research cooperation.
The two sides also jointly held TCM lectures and an exhibition on the Wumen school and offered free TCM consultations, giving local residents a firsthand experience of TCM diagnosis and treatment.
The mission extended the reach of TCM in French-speaking African and Arab regions in North Africa, deepened friendship and cooperation with Suzhou's sister city of Marrakech, and laid a foundation for the Wumen school to cooperate more under the Belt and Road Initiative.
As the medical research cooperation agreement moves into implementation, TCM looks set to remain a bond between Suzhou and Arab countries.
