The cosmopolitan vision of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) embodies both ethical ideals and a call for global justice, yet it is increasingly entangled in great-power competition. Using the case of BGI, a frontier life science enterprise from the Global South, this study explores how RRI is locally absorbed and reconfigured, revealing non-Western strategies in global ethical governance. It argues that realizing a genuinely inclusive RRI requires decolonizing science governance, recognizing cultural and epistemic diversity, and developing feasible pathways under political and institutional constraints—contributing Chinese perspectives to the transformation of global science governance.