Posted on 09/18/2019 3:45:45 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that we’re in the Year of the Pig. Rarely has a single food source played as big a role in the nation’s politics as now.
Fears over a year-long outbreak of deadly African swine fever have steadily grown to the point that the topic now dominates the nation’s domestic and foreign agenda with talk of “pork politics”, “pork economics” and “pork diplomacy”.
There’s good reason for the fuss. Pork is the principal source of dietary protein for the Chinese, who consume half the world’s supplies. Since the virus was discovered at a farm not far from China’s border with Russia in August last year, it has spread to all 31 mainland provinces and up to 200 million pigs – nearly half the number in the country – have either died from the disease or been culled.
The ministry of agriculture has warned that pork prices could rise 70 per cent by the end of the year.
Obviously, policy failures have helped to create this crisis. The spread of swine fever into China can be blamed on Beijing’s “pork diplomacy” move to shift imports from the US and Canada – two nations free of the disease – to Russia, the worst-affected country in the world.
On September 1, China imposed an additional 10 per cent tariff on US farm imports, resulting in a 72 per cent duty on imported US pork. China also recently cancelled a purchase of 14,700 tonnes of US pork.
Domestically, meanwhile, Chinese pig farms have been hit by China’s tariffs on imported American soybeans as these have made a key food of Chinese hogs more expensive. China has also restricted imports from Canadian piggeries due to Beijing’s anger at Ottawa’s decision to arrest Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, at Washington’s request.
(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...
Didn’t the Chinese acquire Smithfield Hams in Virginia?
Goldman Sachs, and the rest of the globalists all get the vapors when Trump puts a 10-25% tariff on chinese goods.
Good grief.
They did.
Another part of the problem is Chinese producers use an insane amount of steroids, antibiotics and drugs raising these pigs. There are restrictions in place, but are regularly ignored. Anyone with financial means buys US/Canadian imported pork for health and safety purposes. Chinese raised pork is under a dark cloud of suspicion by the Chinese themselves.
Privately-owned Chinese company probably trying to get its money out of China. That’s one of the reasons Xi Jinping has been cracking down on foreign investments. Harder for him to steal Smithfield Hams from its current owner than some subsidiary physically located in China. Many of these investors are refugees from the Chinese state, not representatives.
[Chinese raised pork is under a dark cloud of suspicion by the Chinese themselves.]
Driving up the price of meat, for any reason, drives people to eat carbohydrates. So China: Welcome to the epidemic of Obesity and Diabetes.
Per Wiki
Smithfield Foods, Inc., is an American meat-processor, and a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate WH Group. Founded in 1936 as the Smithfield Packing Company by Joseph W. Luter and his son, the company is the largest pig and pork producer in the world.
In addition to owning over 500 farms in the US, Smithfield contracts with another 2,000 independent farms around the country to grow Smithfield’s pigs. Outside the US, the company has facilities in Mexico, Poland, Romania, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Globally the company employed 50,200 in 2016 and reported an annual revenue of $14 billion. Its 973,000-square-foot meat-processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was said in 2000 to be the world’s largest, processing 32,000 pigs a day.
Then known as Shuanghui Group, WH Group purchased Smithfield Foods in 2013 for $4.72 billion, more than its market value.
It was the largest Chinese acquisition of an American company to date. The acquisition of Smithfield’s 146,000 acres of land made WH Group, headquartered in Luohe, Henan province, one of the largest overseas owners of American farmland.
Wow, China owns 146,000 acres of our prime farmland.
We had better watch Smithfield’s foreign sales. They will sell to sham buyers and ship to China.
They eat rice which is a carb. The Chinese word for food is rice.
They do, but they’ll likely need more, and much worse, carbs...not to mention a higher percentage.
They’re hosed.
“China owns 146,000 acres of our prime farmland.”
So let them try to move it there.
L
[Wow, China owns 146,000 acres of our prime farmland.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#World_War_I
Damn right China will take that ridiculous tariff off. Pork is the mainstay of their diet and the people are not going to eat plain old rice.
That’s just pork. Imagine how much of America they really own.
Nuke em.. I want cheap bacon prices.
I doubt the Chinese are going to switch to boxed mashed potatoes or, say, sweet potatoes or Wonder Bread. They eat rice as their main starch and that is not going to change.
“Bayer, a German company, had a US subsidiary. That subsidiary, along with its assets, were seized during WWI.”
Right up until the outbreak of hostilities the US Government was paying a royalty to Paul Mauser for our use of his rifle bolt design. Kind of ironic that we ended shooting job lots of Germans with their own stuff.
It’s still being used today.
L
People have been eating plain old rice in China for a thousand years. People here need to read Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, for God’s sake.
Southern China eats rice. Northern China eats noodles and bread.
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