Watch Out: China Cannot Feed Itself | Opinion On 3/15/21 at 7:30 AM EDT
Or, to put this another way, Beijing is effectively acknowledging it cannot feed the Chinese people.
China s leader, Xi Jinping, recently made such an admission. Last August, he announced what became known as the clean your plate campaign to end what he called a shocking and distressing waste of food. Just about everyone saw this effort, to get the Chinese people to eat less, as a warning of food shortages to come.
Chinese officials will not formally admit China is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign food that would be political dynamite but it is now apparent that the country needs to buy foodstuffs from abroad.
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Natural disasters, geopolitical disputes and global food-trade disruptions amid the pandemic have forced Beijing to reassess its approach to food security
Safeguarding people’s health has been the global priority amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. In Bhutan, emerging lessons show how nutrition and other aspects of health are intricately related to the management of food security during the current crisis, and beyond. The country’s leaders have used moral suasion alongside policy measures to demonstrate that good nutrition need not be a luxury.
Attribution: Om Bhandari, “Safeguarding Food Self-Sufficiency in the Time of COVID-19: Lessons from Bhutan,”
ORF Issue Brief No. 429, December 2020, Observer Research Foundation.
INTRODUCTION
Global trade was already facing disruptions before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, owing to weakened growth and heightened US-China tensions; agriculture commodities were being disproportionately affected.