The Socialist Origins of Artificial Carp Reproduction in Maoist China

Abstract

The Maoist era has often been portrayed as a hindrance to China’s biotechnological development due to Lysenko doctrine and the communist government’s animosity to basic academic research. Yet some of China’s most developed sectors in biotechnology have been made possible by socialist enterprises in agriculture and science under Mao. One such example is China’s world-leading aquaculture biotechnology and genetic research on Asian carp. Although some associated China’s success in the area with the booming Asian market and a globalised biotech industry, the field’s advancement has been deeply rooted in earlier socialist history in reforming aquaculture and science. This article takes one essential technology used by biotech and aquaculture industries–the hormone-aided method in artificial carp reproduction–as a major case. By tracing the political, scientific and sociocultural lineages that made its invention and dissemination possible, this article unpacks the complex local and historical underpinning that defies prevalent understanding about the method as simply a variation of biotechnology’s global form. Particularly, the initial invention of the method was catalysed not only by state economic concerns but also by a socialist understanding of fishery and Maoist attempts to remold scientists. The two successful breakthroughs described in the article demonstrate two ways that scientists and technicians of different social and professional standings have appropriated available scientific and political resources to achieve personal and institutional goals. The dissemination of the method was further cemented through mass involvement during the Cultural Revolution. By delineating the concrete processes that have ‘assembled’ and maintained the artificial carp propagation method, the article contrasts its entanglement with the socialist regime then with the way the method has become decontextualised in its current use.