Skip to main content

Chinese Minister Restarts U.S. Cooperation

China's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian met U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in Washington January 18 to resume the Joint Committee on Cooperation in Agriculture (JCCA), a forum for discussing exchanges between the United States and China that had been dormant since 2015. During the same trip Tang also visited Mexico and the Dominican Republic to discuss closer agricultural exchanges with developing countries on the U.S. doorstep.

Chinese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian
met U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack January 18. Source: China MARA.

In the official USDA news release about his meeting with Minister Tang, Secretary Vilsack emphasized China's role as an export market, noting that he discussed market access issues with Minister Tang and expressed hope that the bilateral relationship will expand and improve market access opportunities for U.S. farmers and ranchers in China. The USDA statement also said discussion included "tackling climate and food security challenges" and sustainable agricultural systems. 

China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs' Chinese language web site features an article about the Washington meeting with more detail and a more positive spin than the USDA statement. According to the Chinese article, Minister Tang endorsed the JCCA as a channel for promoting bilateral exchange and promised to "cherish, care for, and operate this mechanism in a stable manner." The description of Tang's comments was more expansive than the USDA statement, calling the restarting of the JCCA "after a 9-year hiatus" as a "landmark event in the history of Sino-US agricultural relations." The Chinese statement pledged that China was willing to work with the U.S. to "pragmatically promote China-U.S. cooperation to take new steps and work together to stabilize food and agricultural development."

The Chinese article mentioned that Minister Tang brought up "climate smart agriculture," food security, and "people to people exchanges" (all favorite topics of Xi Jinping) in the discussion, while Secretary Vilsack brought up trade facilitation. According to the Chinese account the two sides agreed to establish working groups on food security, nutrition and health. 

The Chinese account also reveals that Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng attended the meeting, Tang held afternoon meetings with U.S. commercial groups, and Tang requested a meeting with the U.S. Trade Representative's chief agriculture negotiator.  

The Washington meeting was out of step with China's agricultural diplomacy since last year which has featured a stream of meetings with developing countries where Chinese officials pledged aid and cooperation as a fellow "developing country" to build relations based on a shared importance of agriculture and rural poverty alleviation. It's also unusual for the Chinese agriculture minister to travel abroad. 

Before arriving in Washington Minister Tang made visits to Mexico and the Dominican Republic that were squarely in line with China's agricultural diplomacy strategy. On January 11, Minister Tang met his Mexican counterpart for the 7th meeting of an agricultural working group under a China-Mexico Intergovernmental Standing committee where they discussed climate smart agriculture, food security and promoting rural prosperity. Tang praised growth in China-Mexico trade of agricultural commodities. The article twice mentioned another Xi Jinping favorite, "Agricultural Cultural Heritage." Reflecting China's S&T interests, Tang pointed to exchanges of germplasm and biotechnology research as achievements in China-Mexico cooperation and he visited the International Corn and Maize Improvement Center and the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Research Institute in Mexico. 

Minister Tang met Mexican ag minister January 11 in Mexico City.
Source: MARA web site.

During his January 14-15 visit to the Dominican Republic Tang scored a meeting with the President and held bilateral talks with the Dominican ag minister. Here the Chinese article mentions the "Belt and Road" framework for developing agricultural relations and discussed rice and tropical crops, two favorite crops for China's agricultural diplomacy with developing countries. There were discussions of launching a bilateral agricultural cooperation mechanism between China and the Dominican Republic.

Tang did not visit neighboring Haiti, which is one of a dozen countries that still has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Tang also bypassed old Chinese friend, Cuba, on his North American journey. 

Tang's visits to Mexico, Dominican Republic and the United States were all described in articles on the Chinese language web site of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The English version of the site featured only the visit to Mexico with no mention of the trip to the United States. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...
15 comments
Read more

Divergence in U.S. & Chinese egg prices

High egg prices are a hot topic in the United States. China, in contrast, has a glut of eggs and depressed prices.  The March 14, 2025 USDA Agricultural Marketing Service weekly eggs market overview reported that U.S. egg prices continued declining during the second week of March as the supply situation improved. No significant highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks have occurred in March and U.S. egg demand is relatively light. The average U.S. wholesale price for Grade A large white eggs was $4.15 per dozen, down sharply from their February peak.  Until 2021, Chinese and U.S. wholesale egg prices had been roughly equal at about $1-to-$2 per dozen with no trend. U.S. prices fluctuated more than Chinese prices, so the U.S. price was sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Chinese price after converting them to dollars per dozen.  Chinese prices converted using monthly exchange rate and assuming 0.6 kg per dozen. Sources: USDA and China Ministry of Agricult...
Post a Comment
Read more

China's Corn & Wheat Imports Down 97% From Last Year

China's first customs data for 2025 feature a 97-percent decline in corn and wheat imports from a year earlier. Soybean imports were up slightly by volume (but down in value), and dairy, pork, poultry, and seafood imports rebounded year-on-year. Life was less sweet in China with a 93.7% decline in sugar imports, and drinking appears to be up as wine and beer imports posted gains.   China's agricultural imports for January-February 2025 were down 14.7 percent from a year earlier. The value of farm and food goods imported for the first two months of 2025 totaled $30.7 billion, down $5.26 billion from the same period in 2024. China's exports of agricultural products during January-February totaled $15.2 billion, up $393 million from a year earlier.  Data from China Customs Administration website. As usual, soybeans were the largest component of China's agricultural imports during January-February 2025 with a value of $6.3 billion. Meat imports were valued at $4.1 billion, ...
2 comments
Read more