China Can Feed Itself And Well Into The Next Century

China's grain problem has been a hot issue attracting international attention since the beginning of the 1990s. The eleven theses included in this book have been selected from among over 400 on this topic. Written by well-known experts and scholars these essays, rich in content and information, provide many perspectives on the proposition that 'the Chinese can feed themselves'. / Book back cover

Originally published in 1995, but with enduring relevance in a time of global population growth and food insecurity, when it was first published, this book attracted much global attention, and criticism from Beijing. It argued that even as water becomes scarcer in a land where 80% of the grain crop is irrigated, as per-acre yield gains are erased by the loss of agricultural land to industrialization, and as food production stagnates, China still increases its population by the equivalent of a new Beijing each year. This book predicts that in an integrated world economy, China’s rising food prices will become the world’s rising food prices. China’s land scarcity will come everyone’s land scarcity and water scarcity in China will affect the entire world. China’s dependence on massive imports, like the collapse of the world’s fisheries, will be a wake-up call that we are colliding with the earth’s capacity to feed us. Over time, Janet Larsen argued, China’s leaders came to ‘acknowledge how Who Will Feed China? changed their thinking..’ As China’s wealth increases, so do the dietary demands of its population. The increasing middle classes demand more grain-intensive meat and farmed fish. The issue of who will feed China has not gone away.

This paper uses resource-based cereal equivalent measures to explore the evolution of China's demand and supply for food. Although demand for food calories is probably close to its peak level in China, the ongoing dietary shift to animal-based foods, induced by income growth, is likely to impose considerable pressure on agricultural resources. Estimating the relationship between income growth and food demand with data from a wide range of countries, China's demand growth appears to have been broadly similar to the global trend. On the supply side, output of food depends strongly on the productivity growth associated with income growth and on the country's agricultural land endowment, with China appearing to be an out-performer. The analyses of income-consumption-production dynamics suggest that China's current income level falls in the range where consumption growth outstrips production growth, but that the gap is likely to begin to decline as China's population growth and dietary transition slow down. Continued agricultural productivity growth through further investment in research and development, and expansion in farm size and increased mechanization, as well as sustainable management of agricultural resources, are vital for ensuring that it is primarily China that will feed China in the 21st century.

The People’s Republic of China is now over fifty years old. Long considered an outsider, or a club of one, in international relations, China has recently become more active in international institutions. Is China becoming a responsible power in global and regional international relations? How accurate is the traditional perception of China? What factors may be motivating the changes in China’s approach to international institutions and its perceptions of its own role in the world? There is no certainty that China is becoming a more responsible power, recent developments may be just another manifestation of realpolitik. Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy provides a vital insight into these issues, analysing the critical issues in China’s international relations– China’s regional and global diplomatic and security problems, the changing role of the People’s Liberation Army, human rights, religious and democratic movements, and the concept of responsibility. Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy is an insightful and vital introduction to all sides of the current debate over China’s international relations.

The authors set out each of the scarcities that could limit China's power and stall its progress. Beyond scarcities of natural resources and public goods, they explore China's persistent poverties of individual freedoms, institutions, and ideological appeal--and the corrosive loss of values among a growing middle class shackled by a parochial and inflexible political system.

"It's impossible to understand the People's Republic of China under its contemporary circumstances without He Bochuan's CHINA ON THE EDGE - a remarkable analysis of the social, economical, technological, & environmental forces which will determine China's future in the next century."--Harrison Salisbury. "Futurist He Bochuan focuses on such issues as China's overpopulation, illiteracy, inefficiency, pollution, deforestation, & loss of natural habitat, problems not unlike those faced in parts of the U.S. & relevant to our concerns because, with China comprising one-quarter of the World's population, these problems have an important bearing on the world's health & well-being...Some readers will find Bochuan's view of progress in China rather bleak, & his crisp, straightforward presentation of cold, hard facts offputting. But one can't help but be impressed & well informed by the author's thoroughgoing chronicle of issues that touch on all our lives."--Mary Banas-Booklist. "He marshalls a plenitude of charts, graphs, maps, & statistics to document his findings. But his tone is not that of the dry objective-sounding scientist; He is, in fact, furious. We can only hope that He Bochuan's book will arouse world opinion..."--The Progressive.

China now faces the difficult choice of whether to pursue a food self-sufficiency policy or further integrate its agriculture into the world market. China's choice will have profound implications for the world trading system, as well as for its own economy. At the same time, China needs to reform its land tenure and grain marketing systems. This book examines these majority policy issues using up-to-date information and empirical evidence.