Discovering an antimalarial drug in Mao's China

I always find stories of how some science was still going on in China during the Cultural Revolution (and Mao's reign in general) fascinating.

And the ways that that the scientists (who were often ideologically suspect in the eyes of the CCP) would always put in statements that seem humorous to the West but were there to assure the CCP of their loyalty -- like how in the 1972 paper where the Beijing Structural Group solved the structure of human insulin there were statements like "In accordance with Mao Zedong thought, we have determined the structure of human insulin to 2.5 angstrom resolution" and so on.

This is interesting!

From my understanding I I wouldn't have called this "rediscovering ancient knowledge", given Cinchona tree bark was exported from South America from the 17th century onwards, and the cultivation of trees elsewhere to lower the price was quite a big enterprise.

I understand (and love) that this is written from the Chinese perspective, but it would be good to understand whether this rather huge undertaking had any effect on the researchers' efforts. Or whether it didn't, for some reason, and why that might be.