China's Grain Fields are a "Hotbed of Espionage"

China's Security Ministry warned today that grain-producing areas are a "hotbed of espionage" where rampant collection of Chinese seeds by foreign spies threatens China's national food security. The warning posted on numerous Chinese sites effectively puts the kibosh on independent on-the-ground gathering of agricultural market intelligence in China.

The article (English summary in Global Times) warned against an increase in foreign espionage and intelligence agencies'--"black hands of foreign powers"--infiltration of grain-producing regions to obtain genetic data by illegally collecting soybean, corn, and rice seeds. The article cites "a certain foreign intelligence agency" that "coveted the country's grain data and germplasm resources" and bribed an individual named Zhu to export seeds in falsely declared shipping containers. Later in the article the focus narrows to rice seeds.

Foreign "black hands" infiltrating China's grain industry.
screen shot from propaganda video on Douyin.

The Ministry of State Security emphasized that seeds are the "silicon chips" of agriculture and warns that national food security is threatened by allowing foreigners to obtain them. Foreign sale of parent seeds used in breeding is strictly prohibited. 

The Ministry's warning cast suspicion on any agriculture-related investigations by foreigners. It cited an interdisciplinary team of investigators sent by the consulate of "a certain country" to an important agricultural area under the guise of "conducting visits and investigations" (走访调查). The foreign investigation team illegally "probed and collected information" on the production and reserves of a specific crop, traveling on rural roads and making temporary stops near fields. The foreign investigators were excessively cautious in their work, and allegedly evaded detection by changing modes of transportation when traveling between grain-producing areas. 

The warning also is meant to warn citizens against sharing information with foreigners. The article notes that Zhu was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison and 17 individuals engaged in the case received varying degrees of administrative penalties. The article encourages readers to report suspicious activities to security officials, noting that Zhu was caught through a tip from the public.

Warnings against foreign spies and bans on unapproved investigations of crop status have been common for years, but the agriculture specificity of this warning is unusual. There are several possible interpretations:

• Security Obsession: Is this the latest in the obsession with security under Xi Jinping that has already led to security laws on Anti-Terrorism, Management of Overseas NGOs, Cybersecurity, Nuclear Safety, the Biosecurity, and the Data Security. China may have ramped up seed theft again as leaders have prioritized the seed breeding industry in the last few years. 
• Projection: China often accuses a foreign country of unsavory activity to divert attention from China's engagement in the same activity. China has been stealing seeds for years. In 2016 employees of a Chinese seed company were caught stealing corn seeds in the U.S. Midwest (details were very similar to the accusations in today's article: the Chinese thieves drove to seed company test plots around Iowa and Illinois and sent seeds to China disguised in popcorn jars), and in 2017 a Chinese national working for a rice breeder in Kansas was sentenced to prison for passing rice seeds to visitors from a Chinese crop research institute. 
• Tit-for-tat: This warning could be retaliation for the prosecution of a scientist from China working at the University of Michigan who smuggled a wheat fungus into the United States.
• Covering up: China could be trying to cover up problems in its countryside the leaders don't want foreigners to know about...such as rural protests over low farm prices, unpaid migrant wages and failure to pay crop insurance claims; impacts on corn and peanut crops from calamitous floods in north China this month; devastating floods in southern provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan; the spread of African swine fever from Vietnam or other animal disease epidemics; fake grain reserves; bankrupt pig and chicken farms.

It is unclear why the United States or any other country with espionage capabilities would want to steal Chinese rice seeds. Multinational companies have had seed research enterprises in China for decades. Chinese leaders have often bristled at the popularity of corn and vegetable seeds from foreign companies. 

A 2021 celebration of the anti-espionage law warned that
foreign organizations had illegally collected specimens from
protected natural areas in China.

The warning's proscription on foreign sales of rice seeds, in particular, is seemingly at odds with China's efforts to build goodwill with African and Asian countries by establishing rice-breeding centers and demonstration farms in those countries. 

China does not distinguish between industrial espionage and gathering of market intelligence, and the warning makes it clear that any foreign efforts to collect market intelligence in the world's largest agricultural country could be considered espionage. With a ban on unsupervised travel in the countryside, it will become that much harder to verify official Chinese data and market reports. Chinese contacts threatened with punishment for helping spies will be less willing to share any information with foreigners. Chinese leaders seem eager to revert to Mao-era secrecy, a time when foreign diplomats had to base their assessments of the rural situation in China on Peoples Daily headlines and interviews with refugees who escaped to Hong Kong. 

Social media comments by Chinese viewers of a video version of the warning show varying reactions:

• "Agriculture is the most poisonous drug of them all."
• "Besides rice, what else?"
  
• "Sentenced to death"
• "Constantly blaming this and that is just a way to divert public attention! It's 2025 now, let's not go back to the old ways...
• "It's true that the food situation is precarious.  I heard that while some people make money or lose money in business, farmers now lose money even when growing grain?"