[Ngo-sanrm] Advancing Sino-US Relations: Putting Agriculture First

Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Working Group ngo-sanrm at ngocentre.org.vn
Wed Aug 21 11:18:49 BST 2013


This article contains some observations, hopes, and worries related to
agricultural developments and food exports and imports between the U.S. and
China.  Some of the issues are also facing Vietnam, or will be in the
future.

A few items are highlighted.

CHUCK

*

============================
CHUCK SEARCY
71 Tran Quoc Toan, Hanoi, Vietnam
Mobile:      +84 (0) 903 420 769
Email:         chuckusvn at gmail.com
Skype:        chucksearcy
============================

*
http://www.eurasiareview.com/21082013-advancing-sino-us-relations-putting-agriculture-first-analysis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29
*
*Advancing Sino-US Relations: Putting Agriculture First – Analysis

By RSIS <http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/rsis/>

August 21, 2013

*Notwithstanding the remarkable progress in agricultural cooperation
between China and US, potential threats lie ahead. Still expanding
agricultural ties can be the ballast in advancing Sino-US relations.*

*By Zhang Hongzhou*

TOP US and Chinese officials stressed the importance of building mutual
trust to ensure a strong, stable and mutually beneficial Sino-American
relationship, when they met in Washington last month. While much of the
focus of the annual US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue has been on
hot topics such as cyber security, North Korean nuclear issue and maritime
security disputes in the Asia Pacific, expanding agricultural ties should
be made top priority to stabilise Sino-US relations.

Agriculture is of great importance to both China and the United States —the
two biggest agricultural countries in the world. After three decades of
interaction both sides have developed strong agricultural trade and
investment ties, as well as extensive exchanges and collaboration in other
agriculture- related areas.
Strong and mutually beneficial agricultural ties

Building on this solid foundation, there are great opportunities to further
expand agricultural ties between two countries, which could significantly
contribute to overall Sino-US relations. Meanwhile, there are also a number
of urgent agriculture-related issues that might potentially generate mutual
distrust if their agricultural ties are not well managed.

Sino-US agricultural trade has increased by over 900 per cent since China’s
accession to the WTO in 2001. The US enjoyed an agricultural trade surplus
of over USD 20 billion in 2012 with China, which was the largest recipient
of US agricultural exports. China was the US third largest supplier of
agricultural products while the US was the second largest destination for
China’s agricultural exports in 2012.

Rapid expansion of agricultural trade has brought enormous mutual benefits
in terms of improved food security, job creation, and overall trade
imbalance, to name but a few. Huge imports of soybean and cotton from the
US allow China to achieve 95 per cent cereal self-sufficiency, which is the
cornerstone of China’s food security. For the US, close to USD 26 billion
in agricultural exports to China provided jobs for over 200,000 Americans
and generated an additional USD 36 billion in economic activity in 2012.

Next, Sino-US agricultural investment cooperation has expanded
significantly over the last three decades. American agribusiness firms such
as Monsanto, DuPont, ADM, Cargill and Bunge have invested billions of
dollars in a wide range of China’s agricultural production enterprises,
ranging from cereal and soybean processing to production of animal feeds,
machinery, and seed. China’s investment in the United States’ agricultural
sector is also rising. Shuanghui’s purchase of Smithfield at USD 4.7
billion in May 2013, the largest-ever purchase of an American company by a
Chinese firm, underlines the growing Chinese agribusiness investment in the
United States and the beginning of an important new trend.

Sino-US cooperation in other agricultural areas has been very impressive as
well. Since 1980, with the establishment of a working group on agricultural
science and technology cooperation, both countries have launched more than
500 exchange programmes, involving about 3,000 experts. Both countries have
worked together very closely on issues relating to food security and safety
as well. In 2012, during Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, the two
countries signed a five-year Plan of Strategic Cooperation to guide
discussions on food security, food safety and sustainable agriculture.
Expanding Sino-US agricultural ties

China’s agriculture is undergoing the transition from small household
farming to commercial farming. This presents a golden opportunity for the
American agribusinesses, well-equipped with advanced technology, top-notch
management expertise, extensive experience and wide access to information
and markets. Likewise, as China increasingly turns to overseas markets to
meet its agricultural needs, its investment in the United States’
agricultural sector will grow rapidly.

Next, given the widening gap between food demand and supply, China will
have to import more food from abroad. According to the latest forecast by
OECD and FAO, China’s imports of oilseeds, grain, pork, beef, poultry and
other agricultural products will continue to surge in the next decade.
Given the scale of China’s needs, few if any country in the world except
the United States could meet the Chinese demand. Hence, China’s food
imports from the United States are set to rise rapidly in the future.

In addition, both countries’ agricultural production and food security are
subject to acute threats from climate change, environmental pollution and
degradation of natural resources, both countries need closer cooperation.
While close cooperation between the United States and China on traditional
security issues may be very difficult to materialise, agriculture and food
security could be an ideal field for Sino-US cooperation to co-lead the
international efforts to combat challenges in agricultural production,
climate change and degradation of natural resources. This could have a
positive spill-over effect into other areas of cooperation between China
and the United States.
Threats to overall Sino-US relations

While there are great opportunities ahead for the expansion of agricultural
ties between China and the United States, there are also a number of
potential agricultural issues that could threaten Sino-US relations. As the
most populous and famine prone country in the world, food self-sufficiency
is of paramount political and strategic importance to China. Thus, with
China’s growing reliance on the US for food, more people from China begin
to worry that the US is waging a food war against China, leading to
strategic distrust of China towards the US. Furthermore, row over
genetically modified crops, agricultural trade and investment disputes as
well as food safety issues would also undermine overall Sino-US relations.

With strong will and concrete policies from both sides, the current close
and mutually beneficial agricultural ties between two countries could
become the stabiliser or “ballast” of Sino-US relations. This will keep the
two countries’ overall relationship “upright” as they sail through stormy
waters.

*Zhang Hongzhou is an Associate Research Fellow with the China Programme at
the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang
Technological University.*


*

*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://ngocentre.org.vn/pipermail/ngo-sanrm/attachments/20130821/3b1ef021/attachment-0014.html 


More information about the Ngo-sanrm mailing list