Various conflicts and contradictions in China’s rise in the life sciences are best understood as a ‘struggle for recognition’ both domestically and globally. It first sets out the basic governing structure and major policy initiatives in China. But such structures should not be seen as static. In fact, through examination of critical events such as China’s joining of the Human Genome Project, hybrid embryo research, the Golden Rice controversy and the COVID pandemic, the chapter demonstrates that even in an authoritarian country, the national habitus of science is constantly challenged and reshaped by bottom-up initiative from scientists, bioethicists and the general public. More importantly, it highlights the de-territorised nature of these initiatives. It debunks the erroneous impression that researchers in China are passive ‘state scientists’. Rather similar to bioethicists, they actively draw on resources transnationally to establish their professional autonomy and authority within and outside of China. In cases such as the International Association of Neurorestoration, the rise of Chinese-led but transnationally organised science has formulated alternative ways of validating knowledge within contemporary Western science. By reviewing critical events Chinese life science experienced in the past 20 years, this chapter effectively examines five sets of key relations (e.g. scientist-state relation, bioethics-state relation, public-science relation, science-science relation and state-science relation) that have shaped its national habitus of science. Key themes of this chapter are further developed in the examination on India.