Will China's pigs deal fly?

Is pork really a matter of national security? To China it might be, given that the meat is a staple foodstuff of a rapidly growing economy. But in the United States? How many security concerns can one country have?

News that China's Shuanghui International had agreed to buy Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, for US$4.7 billion, or US$7.1 billion including debt, set alarm bells ringing throughout the US.

Some members of congress were incandescent with anger at prime brands such as Armour passing into Chinese hands.

Security experts expressed worries about a Chinese choke point over American food supplies. Lobbyists pointed out that US food imports have grown to 16 per cent in 2011, almost doubling in a decade, and that China is the leading supplier of staple products such as apples, potatoes and peas.

Environmentalists had a field day, scared that China might try to poison the US with unhealthy agricultural practices. William Triplett, a former counsel on the senate committee on foreign relations, said: "Inserting the words 'China food safety' into the internet leads to over 155 million hits - none of them laudatory as far as a brief examination can tell."

The fact that the deal and the outcry came just days before the most important summit meeting of the year, between China's new leader, Xi Jinping, and the US President, Barack Obama, in California, ought to have both countries worried about the dodgy state of their economic and political relationships.

It is doubtful whether Smithfield will figure in the two days of talks between the two leaders unless someone tries to make a tasteless joke about "bringing home the bacon". Xi and Obama have more important things to discuss, including the US "pivot" to Asia, China's aspirations to global leadership and fears that Washington is determined to block it, the dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula, tensions in the seas around China, cyber-spying, the value of the yuan, alleged Chinese dumping of products, Beijing's failure to protect intellectual property rights, Washington's irresponsible fiscal policies, and indeed the failure of both countries to show economic leadership befitting their roles as global power.