China is the world’s second biggest producer of silver and seventh largest producer of nickel. Bonus is that the biggest producer of nickel is Indonesia, which has a free trade agreement with China and the third biggest producer is Russia (lol, lmao).
Also love the example of Sorghum because China is producer #8 in the world and 4 of the top producers are global south countries that absolutely would not cut off trade with China. Also, lmao at the thought of the CPC just collapsing because people can’t get one specific type of liquor. Imagine Russia trying to undermine America by targeting its strategic vodka supply.
All this tells me is that the West doesn’t produce anything that is irreplaceable to China and that the think tankers and journalists are too delusional to recognize this.
I have heard people assert (on what I think are fairly reasonable grounds) that China is mostly food secure for basic foods and relies on imports for luxury foods (tropical fruit, milk, etc) and soy and corn for use as animal feed.
If this is true, then in a blockade or war situation there would be rationing of meat and luxury foods but basically enough vegetables and grains to avert famine.
On a related note, China apparently has an 18 month stockpile of grain at current consumption, which Eldridge Colby (think tank ghoul) vagueposted about and got dunked on by Chen Weihua.
pick almost any vegetable and china grows near to or more than the next 9 nations combined.
their agricultural system is far more diverse and resilient than the US. they had their own agricultural revolution during the so-called green revolution financed by Western capital, and while it doesn’t grow a mountain of soy/corn like the settler colonial states, it feeds healthy food to a lot of healthy people.
98% of pork in China are foreign breeds. This is a serious issue, since China comprises about half of the world’s pork consumption. If there really is a sanctions on food import for China, there will be a massive plunge in living standards in China and they might actually start a war over it. This is why I don’t think even the US dares to think about sanctioning food.
Also, 18 months is a relatively short time scale for a war between two giant economies. The war in Ukraine has been going on for 18 months now.
98% of pork in China is from foreign breeds of pig raised in China or from meat/adult pigs? If it’s the former then a blockade is not going to suddenly kill all the pigs inside China.
And yes, it would be a massive drop in living standards food wise. However, widespread rationing of meat and fish is in the living memory of a big chunk of the Chinese population and if they didn’t overthrow the government then they’re probably not going to overthrow the government now that America is clearly the villain.
98% of pork in China is from foreign breeds of pig raised in China or from meat/adult pigs? If it’s the former then a blockade is not going to suddenly kill all the pigs inside China.
They won’t die but they have been genetically cross-bred to degrade over 1-2 generations, which means in 4-8 years the pigs will no longer be viable.
Capitalists are not stupid. When you purchase pigs, they don’t sell you their pedigrees, which are kept in highly secured facilities. They sell you the pigs that have been deliberately cross-bred to the point where they can control the rate of its degradation such that it can no longer produce meat at quality and quantity after a while.
The whole point is to force you to keep coming back and buy from them.