The article said cloning on an industrial scale, not hog farming. 500/year large mammal cloning is quite a lot more than anything I've ever heard of. That was the actual point. The things they are claiming to do are not novel, but the scale certainly is. As far as the "sequence everything" goal, BGI has the infrastructure and an established track record already. The final claim that China is an emerging science powerhouse is also not really debatable, considering they are 2nd in R&D spending to the US.