Securing the 'Rice Bowl'

China and Global Food Security

Hongzhou Zhang

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9789811302350
• eBook ISBN: 9789811302367
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Agribusiness
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers a snappy but comprehensive investigation of how the resource needs of today could become the resource conflicts of tomorrow. As the most populous country in the world, the security of China's "rice bowl" is not only a top political priority for China's policymakers but increasingly a critical global concern as the country emerges as a leading food importer and a major player in outward agricultural investment. This book sheds light on China's efforts, both at home and abroad, to safeguard its food security and how these efforts will affect global food systems. This book will be of interest to industry analysts, institutional investors, and scholars of China's global rise.

© The Author(s) 2019

Hongzhou ZhangSecuring the ‘Rice Bowl’https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0236-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Feeding China

Hongzhou Zhang¹

(1)

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

Hongzhou Zhang

We must ensure China’s food security so that we always have control over our own food supply.

Xi Jinping (2017) at 19th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) National Congress

End Abstract

Lester Brown’s Question

In May 2017, The New York Times published a report entitled, “China’s Appetite Pushes Fisheries to the Brink.” In this report, the writer claims that China’s insatiable demand for fishery products is one of the key factors behind the looming collapse of fishery stocks around the globe (Jacobs 2017). This widely circulated report resonates the long-lasting fear of the international community that China’s growing food supply problems could lead to world food scarcity, and even global catastrophe.

While the question of whether China can feed itself has been a constant concern not only for the Chinese government but also for the world; it has emerged as one of the most contentious issues pertaining to global food security after Lester Brown’s article in 1994. In the spring of 1994, Lester Brown argued in his article—“Who will feed China”—that China’s grain production had already reached its peak and would only go down, declining by at least 20 percent by the year 2030. A declining production, coupled with rapidly rising demand due to growing population and diet shift, could only mean that China would try to make up its food deficit by increasing imports. China’s massive food imports would then put an unbearable strain on the global grain export capacity, pushing up global prices of nearly all major commodities and making food expensive for everyone (Qureshi 2008). Ever since, food security experts, agricultural specialists working inside and outside of China, as well as international organizations such as Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have offered various assessments of China’s agricultural yield potential in reply to the question of “Who will feed China?”(Boland 2000; Qureshi 2008). Amid the global food crisis in 2007/2008, many commentators and even Western leaders, including the then United States President George W. Bush and the then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, had listed China and other developing countries’ rising food demand as one of the key contributors to the rapid surge in global food prices (Chakrabortty 2008; Wolf 2008). In February 2014, Lester Brown published another piece entitled “Can the World Feed China?” In the paper, again, he argues that China’s growing food imports and agricultural investment overseas could lead to rising food prices and political instability. Brown is not alone in claiming China’s growing food imports will threaten global food security. In October 2013, Foreign Policy printed an article entitled “Appetite for Destruction-Why feeding China’s 1.3 billion people could leave the rest of the world hungry” (Zhang 2014).

Lester Brown’s 1994 article coincided with high domestic inflation in China. In the same year, China’s annual inflation rate reached an unprecedented 24 percent, which was a result of sharp changes in food prices (food items experienced over 40 percent inflation in November 1994), especially for grains (Chang and Hou 1997). Against this backdrop, the Chinese government reacted to Lester Brown’s article fiercely. Apart from refuting Brown’s claims, China issued the country’s first ever White Paper on Grain Issues in 1996. In this White Paper on Grain Issues, China officially announced the 95 percent self-sufficiency rate as the bottom line of its food security and also pledged to achieve absolute self-sufficiency in cereals, including wheat, rice, and corn (Information Office of the State Council, P.R. China 1996). It should be noted that the grain self-sufficiency policy had been a long-standing policy for the country. China had mostly relied on domestic grain production in the socialist era (1949–1978) as well as in the early reform period (1978–1995) (Christiansen 2009). However, the difference is that this renewed push for grain self-sufficiency occurred at a time when China was about to integrate itself into the world economy further while accelerating privatization and deregulation (Zhan 2017).

In the early 2000s, with a significant drop (See Fig. 1.1) in China’s grain output, concerns arose, both domestically and internationally, on China’s ability to feed itself. In this context, China initiated the great overhaul of its agricultural tax system in 2004. Apart from abolishing the centuries-old agricultural tax, it started providing agricultural subsidies to the farmers to encourage grain production. In the meantime, China promulgated the 120 million hectare redline to prevent the large conversion of farmland to commercial usage. During the global food crisis in 2007/2008, China published the country’s first ever National Mid- to Long-Term Food Security Plan (2008–2020), in which the government reiterated its commitment to achieving a 95 percent self-sufficiency rate in grain supply and 100 percent self-sufficiency rate in the supply of cereals (State Council, P.R. China 2008).

Fig. 1.1

China’s annual grain production (1978–2017). (Source: National Bureau of Statistics, P.R. China 2017)

Days of Self-Sufficiency Are Over

Lester Brown’s claim that China’s grain production reached its peak in the early 1990s proved to be wrong. As seen in Fig. 1.1, China’s annual grain output, though experienced notable decrease between 1999 and 2003, had achieved grain production increase since 2003 for 12 consecutive years, reaching 621 million tonnes in 2015. This was largely credited to strong political commitment and policy support from the central government. Despite dipping slightly from the historical record in 2015, China’s grain production totaled 618 million tonnes in 2017, over 40 percent higher than that of 2003.

Notwithstanding the remarkable growth in domestic grain production, China’s total grain imports surged during the same period. Since 2014, for three consecutive years, China’s grain imports have surpassed 100 million tonnes. While price gaps between domestic and international grain markets have been one of the key factors behind the skyrocketing of China’s grain imports over the past couple of years, it is increasingly clear that domestic production falls short of the rapidly rising demand. The official target...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Feeding China
• 2. Paradigm Shift in China’s Food Security Strategy
• 3. Scaling Up and Cleaning Up the Farmland
• 4. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) as the New Hope
• 5. Fishing for Food
• 6. Looking South for Rice
• 7. Marching West for “Bread”
• 8. Food Power in the Context of Sino-American Rivalry
• 9. Creating China’s Global Agribusinesses
• 10. A Hungry China and the Future of Global Food Governance
• Back Matter