Beyond Stereotypes and Caricatures

In “Chinese Academics Are Becoming a Force for Good Governance” (Issues, Summer 2023), Joy Y. Zhang, Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, and Kathleen M. Vogel provide a thoughtful exploration of how bioethicists, scientists, legal scholars, and others are making important contributions to ethical debates and policy discussions in China. They are addressing such topics as what constitutes research misconduct and how it should be addressed by scientific institutions and oversight bodies, how heritable human genome editing should be regulated, and what societal responses to unethical practices are warranted when they are not proscribed by existing laws. Their essay also addresses several issues with implications that extend beyond China to global conversations about ethical, legal, and social dimensions of emerging technologies in the life sciences and other domains.

Given the growing role that academics in China are playing in shaping oversight of scientific technologies, individuals expressing dissent from official government doctrine in at least some cases risk being subjected to censorship and pressure to withdraw from public engagement. As tempting as it might be to highlight differences between public discourse under China’s Communist Party and public debate in liberal democratic societies, academics in democracies where various forms of right-wing populism have taken root are also at risk of being subjected to political orthodoxies and punishment for expressions of dissent. One important role transnational organizations can play is to promote and protect critical, thoughtful analyses of emerging technologies. They can also offer solidarity, support, and deliberative spaces to individuals subjected to censorship and political pressure.

The authors also note the challenges that scholars in China have had in advocating for more robust ethical review and regulatory oversight of scientific research funded by industry and other private-sector sources. This issue extends to other countries with stringent review of research funded by government agencies and conducted at government-supported institutions, and with comparatively lax oversight of research funded by private sources and conducted at private-sector institutions. This disparity in regulatory models is a recipe for future research scandals involving a variety of powerful technologies. In the biomedical sciences, for example, these discrepancies in governance frameworks are becoming increasingly concerning when longevity research is funded by private industry or even individual billionaires who may have well-defined objectives regarding what they hope to achieve and sometimes a willingness to challenge the authority of national regulatory bodies.

Finally, we need to move beyond the facile use of national stereotypes and caricatures when discussing China and other countries with evolving policies for responsible research. China, as the authors point out, is sometimes depicted as a “Wild East” environment in which “rogue scientists” can flourish. However, research scandals are a global phenomenon. Likewise, inadequate oversight of clinical facilities is an issue in many countries, including nations with what often are assumed to be well-resourced and effective regulatory bodies. For example, academics used to write about “stem cell tourism” to such countries as China, India, and Mexico, but clinics engaged in direct-to-consumer marketing of unlicensed and unproven stem cell interventions are now proliferating in the United States as well. Our old models of the global economy, with well-regulated countries versus out-of-control marketplaces, often have little to do with current realities. Engagement with academics in China needs to occur without the use of self-serving and patronizing narratives about where elite science occurs, where research scandals are likely to take place, and which countries have well-regulated environments for scientific research and clinical practice.

Leigh Turner