China has similar protocols on biological experimentation to other countries, researchers there often argue, but it is less bureaucratic in implementing them.

As recent health problems with AIDS and SARS have demonstrated, however, the Chinese government may lack the means to enforce strict regulations throughout the vast country, even if it wanted to.

As a result, research ethics are being policed at the local level — or they rely on the goodwill of China's researchers, and their appetite for international acceptance.

“Our first priority is to publish papers in the major journals, and we don't want to get rejected on the basis of a violation of ethical standards,” says Linsong Li, director of Peking University's Stem Cell Research Center.

The Chinese government has been preparing ethical guidelines for biologists for more than a year, but their publication has repeatedly been delayed. The document is expected to cover human stem cells and to include some restrictions on other procedures, such as xenotransplantation.

In the meantime, some local organizations have taken matters into their own hands. The National Human Genome Center in Shanghai, for example, in spring 2002 drafted its own guidelines for research on human embryonic stem cells.

Even if major centres have regulations in place, it is hard to know what is happening in the rest of China. Although human rights are taken seriously, the idea of humane treatment of animals has yet to be cemented, says Huanming Yang, director of the Beijing Genomics Institute. “We're still at the beginning with animal rights,” he adds.

Chinese biologists are highly sensitive to the outside perception that their country has lax bioethical standards, says Bruce Lahn of the University of Chicago. Many Chinese research leaders were trained abroad and follow international rules, he argues.