Sure, food imports are still necessary today for China, but having food availability at all times is a National Security issue and China is making sure it will not be exposed to new alliances that will be created to cripple China. With that in mind, China now has the luxury of choice as to who it wants to import food from countries to supplement domestic production without jeopardizing its National Security issue.
For a country that had seen hunger and starvation in the past to what it is today is good planning. 1.4 billion population have massive need for food and China is delivering it in confidence. With aquaculture, land reclamation from deserts, cattle rearing under solar power fields, China has pulled off another miracle quietly under the nose of the world. No loud noise, no gloating and no chest beating.
While the USA and the West keep demonizing about China's overcapacity in manufacturing, there is another sector overlooked by the West and that is agriculture and food security that China is going to dominate moving forward. And the success of China's agriculture and eventual exporting is going to pose huge problems for those countries leveraging on agriculture and exporting food to China and the rest of the world.
Perhaps there will come a day when the USA and the West, through the WTO will demand that China should grow less and export less to be sustainable, just like telling China to export less manufactured goods to the rest of the world. That, by the way is just the stand of the USA and the West, but what about the view of the Global South countries depending on cheap Chinese exports to them? Do they have a voice? I am sure they want China to export more, not less.
Anonymous
1 comment:
While USA agriculture is being decimated by China and also the EU with its stringent threshold, China is expanding freely without constraints. Domestic demand is a given, while exports of agricultural products will grow. It all feeds into the possibility of China dominating in the agricultural sector as well. It may not just be a possibility, but a certainty as such.
This is important because food security is the most import sector for any Government to oversee. Why did the Japanese Government continue to subsidize Japanese farmers when cheaper imports of Japanese rice are available. It is all about food security in times of trouble.
So, as the agriculture sector in the USA continue to grow smaller with farms declaring bankruptcy and food production failing to find big markets, the sector will grow even smaller as China expands it agricultural exports, and with the competition from China, it may well put what is left inside the USA and EU just selling at home eventually. But of course, preventing China from entering the USA and EU market is always available.
On the other hand, China has the Global South market at its disposal, a big enough market to sustain its expansion with several billion people to sell to.
Post a Comment