Description
Health biotechnology has emerged as one of the pivotal arenas in the strategic competition between the US and China. The BIOSECURE Act of 2024 aims to prevent federally-funded US pharmaceutical companies from engaging with identified “companies of concern,” which include the Chinese BGI Group and WuXi AppTec, viewed as threats to US national security. By drawing insights from public policy literature, particularly the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), this paper demonstrates how a revised securitization framework, focusing on the concepts of “audience” and “audience acceptance,” can be applied to elucidate the securitization process of Chinese health biotechnology by the US government. The paper reveals that such a reconceptualization facilitates a precise definition of audience, encompassing distinct groups clustered within advocacy coalitions; recognition that these coalitions exhibit different policy beliefs and degrees of coordination; and a more structured analysis of the connections between audience and their respective impacts on the securitization process. The paper contends that the US securitization of health biotechnology reflects a broader trend of techno-nationalism, where countries increasingly perceive scientific and technological advancements through the prisms of national security and economic competitiveness. Such securitization nevertheless may have detrimental effects on global biomedical advancement and health security.
