Biotechnology intrinsically blurs boundaries between science and commerce, market and state, the global and the national, and even personal privacy and collective interest. Progress depends more heavily in biotech than in other high-tech industries on knowledge networks and transnational collaboration, especially those that connect the United States and China.
Abigail Coplin is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Science, Technology, and Society at Vassar College. Her research analyzes the development of China’s biotechnology and agrobiotechnology industries to unpack how scientific innovation, business, and regime legitimacy co-evolve in the contemporary People’s Republic of China, how the Chinese state contends with scientific experts and incorporates expertise in its governance schemes, and how China’s pursuit of high-tech development is restructuring relationships among Chinese society, industry, and the party-state. She is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Domesticating Biotechnological Innovation: Science, Market, and the State in Post-Socialist China and a second project unpacking the sociopolitical mechanisms underpinning China’s model of biological data capitalism.
Coplin holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, an M.A. in Regional Studies of East Asia from Harvard University, and a B.S. in Chemistry and East Asian studies from Yale University. She is currently a fellow in the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program, and has also previously held fellowships with the University of Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Contemporary China, the Yale Council on East Asian Studies, and the Fulbright Association.
As Russia piles up casualties in Ukraine while its economy collapses at home, the democratic world appears—at least for now—more united than ever. Russian firms are scrambling to adjust to the country’s status as an international pariah, while big brands are withdrawing rapidly. But it is unclear just where China stands. Beijing is ardently proclaiming its neutrality, even as the U.S. claims it responded positively to requests for military aid and Chinese media promotes conspiracy theories about U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine. What lessons is China taking from Russia’s experiences, especially over a future invasion of Taiwan? Will China move to decouple further from the West, or seek greater leverage to avoid Moscow’s fate?
Yun Sun is a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. Her expertise is in Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and China’s relations with neighboring countries and authoritarian regimes.
From 2011 to early 2014, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, jointly appointed by the Foreign Policy Program and the Global Development Program, where she focused on Chinese national security decision-making processes and China-Africa relations. From 2008 to 2011, Yun was the China Analyst for the International Crisis Group based in Beijing, specializing on China’s foreign policy towards conflict countries and the developing world. Prior to that, she worked on U.S.-Asia relations in Washington, D.C. for five years. Sun earned a Master’s degree in International Policy and Practice from George Washington University, as well as an M.A. in Asia Pacific studies and a B.A. in International Relations from Foreign Affairs College in Beijing.
