China’s push for more farming indicates that it is fully aware of its reliance on food imports. In addition, it’s also reducing its position in US Treasury holdings, building Belt and Road Initiative to establish multiple logistical routes across Asia and the world. Its recent bolt move is expanding alliances within BRICS countries which gains momentum amid deepening geopolitical chessboard with the west “rule-based orders.”
As explained by the newspaper the China Daily, “the rapidly ageing rural population has made it more challenging for China to ensure food security,” bringing about a decline in the number of farmers and forcing the country to depend more on imported produce.
There is a geopolitical element to China’s sudden push for more farming. Using the word “food security” in the aforementioned article indicates that Beijing is well aware its growing reliance on foreign food imports represents a critical strategic risk for the country, one which can be leveraged to bring it to its knees. It might be implied that Beijing is preparing contingency plans for a potential war with the United States, and therefore must severely reduce its dependency on food imports, a great deal of which happen to come from the US itself.
A rapid way to defeat any nation in war, if geography allows it, is to place a maritime embargo on it and cut it off from critical import and export routes, locking it into a war of attrition as its resources dwindle and time plays against it. It might be said that the British Empire achieved this twice against Germany, which was unfavorably locked in the heart of central Europe, using the superior power of the Royal Navy to impose maritime embargos against it. In both World War I and II, Britain’s geographic advantage allowed it to close Germany’s commercial access to the Atlantic via both the North Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar.
Berlin, lacking critical resources such as oil and enough food supply, was strategically encircled and – despite having lightning-fast strike capabilities – could not win a protracted war. Naval embargos are very damaging, and that’s why the American strategy against China aims to completely encircle its peripheral oceans with interlocking alliances and a growing military presence. In the event of a war, the US would attempt to economically strangle Beijing with a maritime embargo, which would aim to cut it off from critical imports, and food would be no exception. If Chinese people starve, it brings the regime down and therefore the war is won.
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