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MacroscopeIn trade war talks, China may want US agricultural imports, but what it needs is food security
- Washington and Beijing should know that a deal to end the trade war that increases Chinese reliance on US agriculture and US farmers’ dependence on Chinese markets is actually a lose-lose
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Food security, economics and geopolitics go hand in hand. With China and the United States purportedly closing in on a settlement of the current trade war, sections pertaining to agricultural products will surely loom large in any final deal. But Beijing should not become overdependent on US farmers. Nor should Washington get too reliant on China as a market for its agricultural exports.
China needs to import a lot of food. It needs to feed almost a quarter of humanity but has only 7 per cent of the world’s total farmland. The combined requirements of urban expansion and industrialisation only put further pressure on the size of its agricultural land bank.
Data for 2017, released last year by the Ministry of Natural Resources, measured China’s total arable land at 134.86 million hectares (333.25 million acres), down by 60,900 hectares (150,490 acres) from 2016. At the same time, land used for construction increased by 534,400 hectares (1.32 million acres) in 2017 to reach 39.59 million hectares (98 million acres).
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Environmental damage caused by the rapid pace of industrialisation has adversely affected the food-producing capabilities of some areas.
On the face of it, it would make perfect sense for Beijing to help address Washington’s concerns about the US trade deficit with China by agreeing to buy even greater volumes of US grain and other farm products.
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