With the liberalizations and economic reforms of the 1980 s pragmatism was codified in the Three Roads Policy where traditional medicine was again permitted in the private sector, in essential competition with biomedicine and the TCM sponsored by the State.
Western medicine is now dominant in the People's Republic of China.
Recent estimates put the number of health care workers trained in acupuncture at more than a 1,000,000. Although the number who currently practice acupuncture is unclear, we do know that most are trained in traditional medicine, zhong yi , typically herbal pharmaceutics and acupuncture. More than 30,000 assistant traditional doctors have graduated from three-year programs that offer the same subjects in lesser detail. There are many Chinese biomedical physicians who have attended abbreviated acupuncture courses and more than 2,000 physicians have graduated from both a traditional and a Western medical program. By the early 1980's over 1,000,000 Barefoot Doctors had been trained in six month to two-year programs.