As the country's year-old African swine fever epidemic began to send pork prices into the stratosphere this summer, the government's rhetoric gradually shifted from admonitions to stop the spread of the disease to pronouncements that the disease is "under control" and commands to restore "normal" production and trade. On August 20-21, Premier Li Keqiang visited food markets and chaired a State Council meeting that adopted "more detailed policies and an attitude of urgency" to cope with the pork supply crisis.
On August 22, Vice Premier Hu Chunhua told communist party officials to prioritize the rebuilding of pork production capacity and preservation of pork supplies as an important "political task." The full transcript posted on a pork industry site warned officials that widespread pork shortages could occur during the upcoming moon festival, National day, New Year, and spring festival holidays if they fail to take measures. Shortages would affect the "happy and peaceful atmosphere" during the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Peoples Republic, the vice premier said. Furthermore, Hu warned that a gaping hole in the pork supply and unaffordable pork for low-income people would impair the image of the communist party in 2020 when the "well-off society" is scheduled to be achieved.
Most Chinese news media posted only the 3-paragraph summary of the Vice Premier's remarks that omits these admonitions. The full transcript--apparently an internal communication addressed to "comrades"--was posted only on social media. The full transcript is a surprisingly candid assessment of problems and shortcomings in the pork sector that are kept hidden in documents for the public.
Vice Premier Hu's remarks included a number of items that rarely appear in government-approved documents for public consumption:
- The ASF virus is now endemic in China (在我国定植).
- According to Hu, unannounced investigations found large numbers of dead pigs where no disease had been reported, indicating that the actual number of ASF cases exceeds the number reported.
- Hu acknowledged that China's pork supply situation will be "extremely severe" during the 4th quarter of this year and first half of 2020
- The Chinese government estimates that the country will have a 10-million-metric-ton deficit in pork supply this year.
- Premier Hu said the projected 10-mmt deficit exceeds the amount of pork traded in international markets.
- Monthly estimates of swine inventories by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs are based on monitoring of 4000 pig-raising villages and 13,000 scaled-up farms.
- With its short production cycle, poultry will be the main substitute relied upon to fill the deficit. China will struggle to increase poultry production by 3 mmt this year, Hu said.
- After years of prioritizing control of manure pollution by closing or moving farms, local officials are now accused of over-zealous enforcement and are ordered to pare back zones where livestock farms are banned and pay for re-building hog farms.
- Hu acknowledged that there hasn't been much progress in cleaning up manure pollution
- Local leaders in pork-producing regions have been asking for slaughterhouses to be built in their counties because subsidized pig farms generate no tax revenue and pigs are mostly trucked off to cities for slaughter. This pattern is said to "unsustainable," and trucking pigs around the country is acknowledged as contributing to the spread of disease.
- Hu acknowledged chronic weakness and under-funding of grassroots veterinary services.
Hu Chunhua recommended numerous policy measures to stabilize production and maintain market supplies of pork. Provincial and local officials are responsible for implementing these policies:
- Pork farms and companies are to be given short-term aid.
- Banks must not cut off lending to swine farms and slaughterhouses; subsidized loans should be given to swine farms. Provincial government loan guarantee organizations should prioritize recovery of swine farms.
- Poultry companies should also be given aid to expand.
- Each province is charged with maintaining a degree of self-sufficiency in pork. The mayors' market basket system will hold city officials accountable for supplying pork and other nonstaple foods to their citizens.
- Pork reserves should be expanded and made more effective.
- Pork-deficit provinces and cities are to form long-term pork supply agreements with neighboring pork-surplus provinces and counties to establish contiguous regions self-sufficient in pork.
- Officials should work out arrangements by which wealthy cities pay pork-producing counties to support their farms and infrastructure.
- Land and credit should be set aside to build slaughter facilities in pork-producing counties.
- 2 billion yuan in food subsidies for low-income people have been announced.
Previous announcements targeted aid to large-scale farms, but the State Council's August 21 circular extended support to household-operated farms and removed a minimum requirement of 15 mu (1 hectare) of land for a farm to receive support.
Vice Premier Hu wrapped up his address by emphasizing two points that are distinctive features of the communist regime:
Vice Premier Hu wrapped up his address by emphasizing two points that are distinctive features of the communist regime:
- "We must strengthen the guidance and management of public opinion."
- "Stabilization of production and maintaining supply are an important political task."
In China's economic model, government officials are the "directors of the play" and "companies are actors on the stage." It follows that officials have privileged access to information so they can pull the strings to organize the play. Hu reflects this duality by goading officials to "apply force on internal matters" and "in external matters do well on propaganda, issuance of information, and managing public opinion" (italics added). In the same vein, Hu advised statistical bureaus to increase the frequency of "confidential" or "secret" surveys so the government can devise timely support measures. In other words, Chinese statistics are internal information for the government's use; statistics are only released to the public after being massaged and molded into a propaganda statement.
The vice premier's remarks reveal a contradiction regarding information gathering. Like an angry schoolmaster, Hu Chunhua chided local officials for not reporting of disease to central authorities and promises they will be punished for doing so. While he is aghast that local officials withhold information from him, the Vice Premier seems to have no problem withholding information from the public. Hu believes information released to the public must be carefully managed to shape their opinion. The public cannot be trusted with information because they might panic and hoard pork or try to corner the market. (And of course, government officials would never do this themselves.)
Management of public opinion is evident from a comparison of Premier Hu's speech with a Peoples Daily propaganda article. While Premier Hu warned officials about an impending shortage of pork and potential market instability, Peoples Daily quoted a Ministry of Agriculture official who declared that "The overall meat supply is assured" and "the pork market is overall stable." Premier Hu told officials they face a long, difficult battle against ASF, but articles intended for the public declare that the disease is under control and normal production and marketing can now resume.
The elevation of promoting pork production as a "political task" reveals the constantly changing crisis-driven priorities kicked down to local officials. Efforts to control manure pollution are an example of the constant oscillation of "political tasks." Policy pronouncements in the last two months have included vague admonishments not to go beyond legal requirements in designating zones where livestock farms are banned or limited. These refer to a an ongoing tug of war over efforts to clean up pollution from pig manure in a rapidly urbanizing society. The first livestock law in 2005 included a provision that called for each community to designate zones where livestock farms would be banned, limited or encouraged. Livestock farms would be restricted near residential areas, institutions of higher education, drinking water sources, markets, roads, and scenic areas. This idea was rarely implemented until 2013 when a water pollution prevention action plan issued by the state council called for designating such zones by the end of 2017 and destroying or moving farms from zones where they were banned.
In 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a document criticizing local officials for being overzealous in designating farm-ban zones--although the examples they gave seem consistent with language describing the zone designation going back to the 2005 livestock law. Two years later, facing a pork shortage, officials now seem to have decided the Ministry of Agriculture is right by ordering local officials to scale back the pig-ban zones and rebuilding pig farms that were demolished. In his teleconference, Premier Hu also seemed to admit that little had been done to promote treatment and utilization of pig manure although it was a feature of the 2016-2020 plan for the swine sector. Environmental control seems to have been pushed aside as a priority now that there's a pork supply crisis.
10 comments:
"While he is aghast that local officials withhold information from him, the Vice Premier seems to have no problem withholding information from the public. Hu believes information released to the public must be carefully managed to shape their opinion. The public cannot be trusted with information because they might panic and hoard pork or try to corner the market."
Information asymmetry and withholding by governors to the governed is the norm in all times and places, not just in China.
All oligarchies, including the American and British varieties, believe information released to the public must be carefully managed to shape their opinion, not just China.
The public cannot be trusted with information because they might panic and hoard pork or try to corner the market? Remember the salt-buying panic following Fukushima that cleared China's entire retail stocks of table salt in 42 hours?
I suspect that the writer has never been responsible for managing a country with 1.4 billion inhabitants.
I suspect that Godfree Roberts has never been responsible for managing a country with 1.4 billion inhabitants, either.
He's correct! The writer has never run a country of any size. The writer has worked 30 years in a statistical organization that publishes information provided to all political parties, farmers and commercial interests to fold, spindle and mutilate as they please. Anyone in the world can access the information or choose among the many narratives spun by news media, organizations, and companies.
In China, employees of statistical organizations must be vetted for political reliability, and even low-level managers must spend months at a communist party training school before taking up their positions. The head of the organization is assigned to his/her post by the communist party and serves as party secretary.
The writer of this blog has never known the political affiliations of any of his/her bosses or colleagues. The writer produces this blog without pay or recognition to help the public interpret the carefully designed narrative issued by the Chinese communist party. The blog cannot be read in China without a vpn. When citizens have only a single narrative produced by authorities that they know to be false, citizens ignore statistics and act on rumors and herd mentality.
Godfree conveniently forgets that in most countries, independent universities and institutes can collect and publish their own data free from government coercion. Look at the plethora of consumer spending statistics you can get from any Western nation.
Chinese panic buy because there is no such safety release valve - by the time the news comes out, it's only because the CCP cannot contain it. In a normal country, the warning signs of something like ASF are published well in advance and mitigation steps are taken early on.
As the article mentions, all this secrecy leads to farmers hiding ASF cases from local officials, and local officials hiding this information from provincial officials. Now that there is a push for more production, we can expect more infected pork to enter the market. What other choice to they have?
Well researched and informative article. A microcosm of the overall culture of CCP news restriction and manipulation. When last in Beijing, there was no coverage of the HK protests. Hv, the CCP uses western media like Twitter to propagandise their views on HK, showing the absolute worst of the protestors' actions and not providing balance. That is why despite spending billions of dollars a year on "telling the CCP version of China well," the CGTN (China Global Television Network) has gained no traction and has no integrity with the international public. Why do so many (urban, educated, younger) people in China have VPN? Because even patriotically brainwashed locals know what a crock the CCP serves up to its captive audience.
Once again another enlightening story on China. Are we to assume United States Department of Agriculture is nothing more than conduit for spreading of Chinese communism/propaganda, as they continually adopt their #'s?
What other numbers can USDA use? The only alternative is to make up their own, in which case there would be two sets of manufactured statistics to choose from. This may push us along the road to a new century where statistics come from clicks, cameras, and sensors vomited out of "big data" instead of sample surveys.
Roberts is a pro-Beijing cheerleader. He posts his drivel on the comments section of the SCMP, too.
1. Hu acknowledged chronic weakness and under-funding of grassroots veterinary services.
I wish one day someone could tidy up the national veterinary certification system and take the unqualified vet out of the village, the stigma of livestock veterinarian has caused disinterest in becoming a livestock vet in the country, let alone moving to regional area. Start the change with the rural veterinary authority would be a great way to change such stigma to promote prophylaxis, biosecurity awareness at the farm level and at the trucking companies.
2. Local leaders in pork-producing regions have been asking for slaughterhouses to be built in their counties because subsidized pig farms generate no tax revenue and pigs are mostly trucked off to cities for slaughter. This pattern is said to "unsustainable," and trucking pigs around the country is acknowledged as contributing to the spread of disease.
Only if they can centralize the slaughtering procedure at a effectively managed slaughterhouse. Regional areas suffer from the lack of quality human resource effectively manage this kind of operation.
Thanks ffor this
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