Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

China's plan to modernize Africa's agriculture received much praise and fanfare at a China-Africa agricultural cooperation forum held in China's Hainan Island this week.  The "Plan for China Supporting Africa’s Agricultural Modernization" (along with plans for the continent's industrialization and personnel training) was unveiled by Xi Jinping at the August BRICS forum in South Africa . The plan includes technology transfer by Chinese experts, building a China-Africa tropical agriculture R&D center, establishing a China-Africa R&D innovation alliance, training African technicians and managers, and promoting China-Africa trade in agricultural goods.  China implies that its plan is superior to western approaches to aiding Africa. The plan's preamble announces that "China is ready to further explore new pathways of agricultural cooperation with Africa." China bills its plan as "south-south cooperation": one "developing countr...

Vietnam has a vaccine for African swine fever (ASF). China does not.  ASF is a virus that spreads quickly and causes hemorrhaging and death in most infected pigs. ASF first jumped from Europe to China in 2018. Then the virus jumped over the Chinese border to Vietnam within months after it had reached China. Swine herds were decimated in both countries.  Scientists in Europe and elsewhere had been working on ASF vaccines for many years. Yet by early 2020--about 18 months after the country's first outbreaks--China's Harbin Veterinary Institute  said it had developed a vaccine for ASF  that was safe and effective. The vaccine was a live attenuated vaccine created by deleting genes from the virus. The Institute bragged on its web site:  “The vaccine is currently the most promising vaccine for industrial application and will provide important technical means for the effective prevention and control of African Swine Fever in China and related countries.”  Four mo...