A quibble here: Hong Kong has more people vaccinated with the Comirnaty/Biotech vaccine, which is essentially the Pfizer vaccine, than Sinovac. Given the dire numbers there, this certainly darkens the outlook in China, without mRNA vaccines, considerably.

I hypothesise that cultural stigma is also an important factor. The traditional hierarchy in Chinese society was the Intelligensia at the top, followed by farmers, craftsmen and finally merchants at the bottom rung. Bankers would likely be lumped with the merchants, and the lack of social status might have served to discourage innovation in that field.