The Limits of China’s Self-Sufficiency: Why the Country’s Food Insecurity Could Prevent a War Over Taiwan
Foreign Affairs · Joel Wuthnow ·
China’s Food Insecurity Could Prevent a War Over Taiwan
When assessing the probability of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, analysts tend to focus on a few obvious risks that China would face—namely, military defeat, economic slowdown, and restricted oil and technology imports. All of these are important, but an equally significant vulnerability is often left off the list: China’s reliance on soybean imports.
Beijing recognizes this liability. At the 20th Party Congress, in 2022, Chinese leader Xi Jinping identified “ensuring the security of food, energy resources, and critical industrial supply chains” as issues essential to national security and social stability. Food security, conspicuously listed first, is an especially sensitive issue for China’s 1.4 billion inhabitants: roughly 15 percent of the country’s population today was alive during the 1959–61 famine, which resulted in an estimated 30 million deaths.
As with technology and oil, Beijing has tried to limit its dependence on soybeans by building up stockpiles and diversifying its sources. But because soybeans are a fragile foodstuff, there is only so much China can do. Beijing can support a war effort, therefore, for only as long as the Chinese public could put the People’s Liberation Army’s success above its nutritional needs. And the key for deterring Chinese leaders from starting a conflict is to convince them that a domestic crisis would arrive sooner than any battlefield victory.
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