This book looks at the then-nascent emergency management sector in China, specifically the 2003–2012 period, that arose from the 2003 SARS crisis and subsequently set the stage for its responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Covering not only the amended and new laws and regulations at the national level, the book also includes the rearrangement and creation of the organizational structures, as well as the response plans for individual emergencies that were either recrafted or created during this period. Beyond chronicling the milestones and products of this transformation, this book highlights the key ideas and ideals that guided the various stakeholders, from the governing elites to the policy experts during this process.

The book demonstrates how definitions of emergency management and emergency categories, as well as other ideational objects, were initially either absent or weakly developed, but were refined to the extent that they helped corral disparate actors into China’s new organizational field of emergency management.