GM foods are likely to become a part of trade disputes with China's big trading partners after the country enters the World Trade Organization. On this issue, China is in a bind. Conscious of shrinking arable land and water resources, it feels compelled to develop high-yield crop strains. And while it has been careful to contain the use of GM crops, potential exports to some neighbouring countries and Europe could be hurt by consumer lobbies suspicious of China's agricultural practices. Like the EU, they have done field tests with genetically modified corn, rice and soy and have only limited production.
China is also aware of global sensitivity over issues such as cloning.
Beijing says it will adhere to the international consensus that opposes human cloning. Unlike the West, however, the government won't be as constrained by public opinion in using the technology for what it deems are ethical causes. However, we differentiate between cloning technology and the cloning of man. But its involvement in the decade-long, publicly funded project put the country in an elite classroom with the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Japan. Participation sharply raised China's profile in the global scientific community and geared domestic science for the task of sequencing the genes of a host of plants and animals.