The Political Economy of Food Import and Self-reliance in China: 1949-2019

ABSTRACT

China’s growing food imports have aroused anxiety over global food security. Paradoxically the country also maintains a policy of food self-sufficiency as the Chinese leadership reiterates that the country must “hold the rice bowl in its own hands.” Importing large volumes of food while emphasizing self-sufficiency poses a puzzle in understanding food politics in China. This paper examines political and economic forces behind the dual strategy, i.e. seeking food imports and emphasizing self-reliance. The underproduction crisis of food and the neoliberal globalization of the food supply have contributed to rising food imports, whereas the anxiety over national food sovereignty and the need to support rural livelihoods pull China toward food self-reliance. Using statistical and archival data, the paper reveals the critical conjunctures of food imports and self-reliance in China in the past seven decades and the contradictions within the dual food strategy.

KEYWORDS:

• Food security
• food crisis
• food import
• self-reliance
• dual strategy
• China

Notes

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2. Brautigam, Will Africa feed China?; Brown, “Who will feed China;” Fukase and Martin, “Who Will Feed China in the 21st Century?”

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4. Zhang, Securing Rice Bowl, 46-47.

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6. FAO, “Rome Declaration.”

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9. Ibid., 144.

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11. McMichael, “Historicizing Food Sovereignty,” 934.

12. Edelman, “Food Sovereignty.”

13. Cited in Patel, “Food Sovereignty,” 665.

14. LVC, “Declaration of Nyéléni.”

15. Edelman, “Food Sovereignty,” 974.

16. Bramall, Chinese Economic Development, 99.

17. Ibid., 99-100.

18. Walker, Food Grain Procurement and Consumption in China.

19. Schmalzer, Red Revolution, Green Revolution.

20. Nickum, “Labour Accumulation in Rural China.”

21. Ministry of Water Resources, China Water Resources Yearbook 1990, 633; Shuili Huihuang 50 Nian, 19.

22. NBS, China Compendium of Statistics.

23. Bramall, Chinese Economic Development, 293.

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25. Brown, “Who will feed China.”

26. Brown, Who Will Feed China, 14.

27. Heilig et al., “Can China Feed Itself?” Smil, “Who Will Feed China?”

28. State Council of China, “White Paper.”

29. China eventually achieved both goals. It became the largest FDI receiver among developing countries in the mid-1990s and entered the WTO in 2001.

30. Zhang, Huang, and Yan, “Dui Midaizi Shengzhang Fuzezhi De Pingshu.”

31. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life, 91-110.

32. Moore, “The End of the Road,” 293.

33. World Bank, World Bank Open Data.

34. Zhan and Huang, “Internal Spatial Fix.”

35. Christiansen, “Food Security;” Huang, “China’s Hidden Agricultural Revolution;” Schneider, “Developing the Meat Grab.”

36. NBS, Chinese Rural Yearbook 1991, 273; NBS, Statistical Report.

37. Zhan, “Hukou Reform and Land Politics.”

38. Yeh and Li, “Of Crayfish, Rice, and Anxiety;” Day, “From Export to Domestic Market.”

39. Gong and Zhang, “Betting on the Big;” Zhan and Huang, “Internal Spatial Fix.”

40. Han, Zhongguo Liangshi Anquan, 20.

41. Friedmann and McMichael, “Agriculture and the State System;” McMichael, “A Food Regime Genealogy.”.

42. Bhala, “Enter the Dragon;” Huang and Rozelle, “China’s Accession to WTO.”

43. Yan, Chen, and Ku, “China’s Soybean Crisis.”

44. Gale, “Development of China’s Feed Industry;” Gale, Valdes, and Ash, “Interdependence of China, United States, and Brazil in Soybean Trade.”

45. Oliveira and Schneider, “The Politics of Flexing Soybeans;” Yan, Chen, and Ku, “China’s Soybean Crisis.”

46. Yan, Chen, and Ku, “China’s Soybean Crisis.”

47. Zhan, Zhang, and He, “China’s Flexible Overseas Food Strategy.”

48. Gooch and Gale, “China’s Foreign Agriculture Investments;” Zhang, Securing the Rice Bowl, 244-253.

49. Ahlers, Rural Policy Implementation in Contemporary China: Day, The Peasant in Postsocialist China.

50. Zhan, The Land Question in China, 88.

51. Lichtenberg and Ding, “Assessing Farmland Protection Policy in China.”

52. Gong and Zhang, “Betting on the Big.”

53. Bernstein and Lü, Taxation without Representation; O’Brien and Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China.

54. NBS, Statistical Report.

55. Ye, “Land Transfer;” Schneider, “Dragon Head Enterprises.”

56. Zhan, The Land Question in China.

57. NBS, Monitoring and Investigation Reports on Migrant Workers. Zhan, “The Land Question in 21^st Century China.”

58. MOARA, “Press Conference.”

59. NBS, China Statistical Yearbook 2017.

60. Xingqing Ye, an expert affiliated with China’s State Council Research Development Center, a top think tank providing policy proposal for the government, remarked that China’s domestic production and abundant grain stocks could mitigate the impacts of reducing soybean imports in the trade war. In addition, he noted that integration into the global market and strong domestic production provided a double insurance on China’s food security (Ye, 2018).

61. Gong, Pan, and Zhang, “Sangao Zhongya.”

62. Wu and Wang, “The Reform of Grain Purchasing and Storage System.”

63. Wu and Zhang, “Of Maize and Markets.”

64. Gong, Pan, and Zhang, “Sangao Zhongya.”

65. Wu and Zhang, “Of Maize and Markets.”

66. Zhan, “Riding on Self-Sufficiency.”

67. Oliveira and Schneider, “The Politics of Flexing Soybeans.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Tier 1 grant from the Ministry of Education - Singapore [020165-00001].

Notes on contributors

Shaohua Zhan

Shaohua Zhan is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His research interests include land politics, food security, agrarian change, and international migration, with a focus on China and other East Asian nations. He is the author of The Land Question in China: Agrarian Capitalism, Industrious Revolution, and East Asian Development (Routledge, 2019). His current research examines food politics in China and its global implications.