Illustration by Nate Christeson
Essay in NBR Special Report 114
China’s Biotechnology Goals
Implications for U.S. Competitiveness
This essay highlights China’s strategic goals and long-term investments, addresses how these support the foundational work and infrastructure that will drive future discoveries, and examines research in multiple areas that have made tremendous gains—including genomics, bioinformatics, and brain research.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
MAIN ARGUMENT
Academia, research, and commerce are becoming the new “geopolitical battlespace” in the U.S.-China technology rivalry, and fields such as biotechnology are the new front in this competition. It will be essential for the U.S., its allies, and other like-minded countries to design a strategy that reflects the values of open democratic societies.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
- The U.S. needs to invest strategically in the bioeconomy. The early stages of development will be most important for government support and policies. These “first mover” advantages are critical to making new discoveries, and the failure to support nascent industries may produce “chokepoint” ingredients or data for technology development that fast followers cannot recover from.
- The U.S. and like-minded countries need to drive policies that govern the use and storage of genomic data, genomic editing, and animal models that reflect the values of open democratic societies. These policies should include a re-examining of the “biological rules of the road” that includes the sharing of clinical and environmental samples, genomic data, and testing results.
- The U.S. government needs to work with academia, the private sector, and other nations to protect investments in this key sector from theft and exploitation by foreign actors. China’s policies and programs undermine the global norms of science.
Anna Puglisi is a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.