Financial Times - China Fears Food Crisis As Imports Hit $14 Billion

"China has become a net importer of farm produce, raising concerns at the highest levels of government about the security of the food supply for 1.3bn people as land and water shortages put pressure on domestic grain production.

Hu Jintao, China's president, has commissioned urgent studies on food security after evidence in 2003 and this year that China's grain output was dwindling as demand rises in the long term, officials and academics said.

China's growing dependence on western imports comes as trade in agriculture has become one of the most bitterly fought-over aspects of the Doha global trade round. The three biggest exporters to China were the US, Canada and Australia.

“The leadership is very concerned about food security. They were all young men during the famine of the late 1950s and 1960s. It is not only a strategic issue of dependence on foreign markets for them, it is also a very personal issue of food self-sufficiency,” said one academic who advises the government on food security issues. The latest official figures show an unprecedented deficit in agricultural trade in the first six months of the year. Total imports of farm produce in the first half of the year rose 62.5 per cent to $14.35bn. Exports totalled $10.62bn, an 11 per cent increase on the same period a year ago."

EDIT

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ed89a5ea-f465-11d8-9911-00000e2511c8.html

by climate change, Peak Oil, or something else...

can WWIII be far behind?

if they'll launch a pre-emptive strike on the United States to secure the food chain that they desperately need?

Hey, it's alright for the U.S. to actuate this doctrine for our oil supply from the Middle East, why wouldn't China do the same for food?

Bush has created a monster here, a doctrine that if used by other members of the world community, will ensure the end of the world as we know it. Perhaps that's the plan..............RAPTURE TIME!

fall out would contaminate the fields. They might be able to hit some east coast cities not near major farming areas, like New York and Boston, with nukes, but that would be gambling on strong westerlies taking all the fallout to the Atlantic. However, that would contaminate the sea and its fish, which would totally piss off the rest of the Atlantic community.

Really, to conquer us without ruining our agricultural potential would mean a conventional attack only, complete with an invasion. The Chinese do not have the capability to stage a Normandy-style landing on our west coast.

They could wage economic war on us around by refusing to reinvest all the dollars Wal Mart sends them, or they could jack up prices like crazy for all the things that we buy from them. Or they buy everthing possible from other producers, including FSU countries that are now starting to use lots of fertilizer and pesticide to produce surplus for export. Of course, if one or two non-U.S. exporters has a bad harvest, a Chinese boycott of the U.S. might fizzle.

In the end though, the world population is expanding, but the amount of productive farmland isn't. Certainly, improvements in seed and increased availability of commercial fertilizer and pesticide have allowed some counries, like Brazil, to expand heavy grain production into new areas for the time being. However, development and desertification are removing land from cultivation at least as fast.

All in all, it is really a good idea for heavy importers to remain on good terms with major exporters, and vice versa.

We assume that China will immediately act aggressively -- toward the USA. I think that's an unwarranted assumption.

First, China will appeal to the world for help. They will also institute food rationing and draft as many people as they can into food production. This alone might succeed -- for a while.

Second, it would be far easier to seize adjacent food-producing areas in Central Asia and Asian Russia than to shoot nuclear missiles at the USA. In a few years, China will have no problem dealing with the moribund Russian Army east of the Caucasus Mountains. And you can bet that in any food crisis, the military will remain well-fed. In fact, it would be an incentive to join.

For better control of Southeast Asia, China might invade Taiwan. But so much of the Chinese agenda against Taiwan is based on internecine politics that one reason might just be a pretext to implement the other. And don't think I know what "one" and "the other" would be!

Another big question mark is the emergence of Islam as a world power. We simply don't know where this is going. Americans and most Westerners fear the growth of militant Islam, but Muslims are far from universally supportive of radical fundamentalism and Wahabiism. Where we tend to see a demon raising its head, the reality is that Islam is still a powerful, but unpredictable, factor.

Finally, most of our assumptions about Chinese geopolitical behavior are based on our own view of China as The Enemy. In the West, we have perceived China as an alien world for more than 400 years -- maybe much more. It's possible that in an act of panic and desperation, a pre-emptive Western assault will be made on China. This will become much more likely if the West is led by a man with similar geopolitical and religious beliefs as George Bush, and if China is more successful in dealing with the coming economic and ecological problems than we are.

Darker, the DUer who often posts from the Asian press, is a good source of information. Even though he's sometimes confusing (like, what's the deal with Jackie Chan?), I look for his/her posts, since few in the USA even condescend to admit that, outside of its financial markets, Asia exists.

Fundamentalist Christians believe that the End Times will take about seven years to play out. I think that the Coming Problems will take about 50 years to play out. At any point along the way, unanticipated factors could completely revise the scenario: asteroid impacts, Yellowstone eruptions, plagues, superstorms, die-offs of critical organisms, solar typhoons, pole shifts, the awakening of Godzilla, Mothra, and/or Cthulhu, or the return of Bad Music and/or Polyester clothing.

And keep this in mind: I have been wrong before. Often.

It's good to have a Plan B. And to remember that there are 24 more letters left in the alphabet.

--bkl

Does that mean that Wall Mart has to pay for one month of purchases with grain?
Imagine that it would result in a revolt of Wall Mart and shoppers if they don't have a supply of goods. Seems like a reverse here. Something smells fishy with this article.
China could send the US dollar into a spin any time that it wanted.