He was given jail time for publishing his results. He did that out of vanity, wanting the history books to have his name as the first to do it. He is not actually the first, and most certainly not even in a small group of people doing this. His vanity exposed China's genetic engineering program.

This field of study is an arms race and everyone wants to pretend they aren't in it because that would encourage others to be more aggressive with their programs. Everyone who thinks they are the only one working on it will be cautious and thus slow. If they see it as a race they will throw caution to the wind. If you can convince your opponent in a race that you aren't racing they will stop running and you have a better chance of beating them.