This article examines the development of a biotechnological industry in the context of China's transition from planned to market economy since 1979. It focuses on two biotech companies, Weiguang Biological Products Co., Ltd., and BGI, both headquartered in Shenzhen—China's first and most successful Special Economic Zone (SEZ). We argue that China's incomplete and incremental reform significantly shaped the forms and practices of a “post-socialist biotech.” This distinguishes it from Western counterparts in terms of labor governance, value creation, and the conceptualization of risk. The institutional inheritance of socialism allows the two Shenzhen-based biotech companies to organize labor in unique ways. As a result, their approach to innovation differs from the capital-intensive model of scientific research in the West. Beyond monetary profits, the products of these two firms also generate values that are ideological and social, contributing to the Chinese state's political agenda and aiming to strengthen national identity. While conforming to state agendas helps these enterprises counter economic risks, their growth remains confined by state domination in strategic sectors. Altogether, the three axes (labor, value, and risk) comprise a model of biotech that reflects the economic structures of gradual and incomplete marketization.
Zhou et al. (Tue,) studied this question.