Biotech is the key test of international leadership.

China, by contrast, has been integrating biotechnology into its strategic development and elevating biotechnology to a key component of national security. China’s military-civil fusion development strategy makes biotechnology a core priority for the People’s Liberation Army. This strategy has one goal: to bring together China’s civilian and military industrial bases in order to better project power. To that end, China has cornered supply chains in multiple sectors, including pharmaceuticals ingredients and other important chemicals.

Stephanie Rogers, the Defense Department’s acting principal director for biotechnology, recently declared that “the nation that leads the world in biotechnology will accrue enduring economic, societal, and defense gains.” Unfortunately, this awareness has yet to be reflected in government policy. Biotechnology security is national security — for the United States and for China. The Department of Defense should recognize biotechnology’s role as a foundational technology and make biotechnology development and supply chain security a priority.

Maintaining America’s Biotechnology Advantage

Biotechnology in the United States is a significant contributor to the economy. By one estimate, in 2017, U.S. biotechnology revenues exceeded $400 billion, or 2 percent of gross domestic product, substantially surpassing better-measured sectors such as mining. Bioeconomy revenues have grown at an average rate of 10 percent annually for two decades. Notably, U.S. biotechnology revenues alone were approximately equal to worldwide semiconductor revenues for 2017. Biotechnology now supplies critical medicines, and, as more than 90 percent of the corn and soy grown in the United States is genetically modified, biotechnology feeds the armed forces. Industrial biotechnology is responsible for upward of 20 percent of chemicals produced in the United States, suggesting a similar proportion of chemicals used in the military are also biologically derived. And these impressive figures may still be significant underestimates: Using a different methodology, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recently concluded that the biotechnology industry contributes 5 to 7 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Biotechnology, therefore, may already constitute an even larger share of the military supply chain.

As biotechnology continues to mature, its contribution to physical and economic security will become even more significant. Tools are now being deployed that enable the engineering and biomanufacturing of materials that will eventually not only displace petrochemicals but also surpass them in production scale and performance. Over the next ten to twenty years, biological production could soon supply up to 60 percent of physical inputs across the global economy, and biotechnology could have a “direct economic impact of up to $4 trillion a year.”

While the United States is arguably still leading in biotechnology, it risks losing this lead to China. In China, biotechnology is a national development and a security matter. China’s Innovation Driven Development Strategy emphasizes biotechnology’s essential role in the country’s economic development, while the Military-Civil Fusion Development Strategy seeks to ensure that biotechnology research is also oriented toward the country’s military and broader security goals. Chinese biotechnology revenues are reported to be of a similar size to those in the United States, although they are subject to even lesser clarity in reporting.

While China continues its licit and illicit acquisition efforts targeting the U.S. biotechnology sector, it is also shifting its attention to domestic innovation. In time, this will provide the People’s Liberation Army with new capabilities and increase both America’s and the Pentagon’s reliance on Chinese biotechnology products.