China’s drive for self-sufficiency, as trade links fray with the US, is not confined to the cutting-edge likes of semiconductors and missile technology. The humble soyabean, too, is weighing on the minds of the nation’s leaders, and has become the unlikely subject of a national campaign to boost output.A cheap and versatile source of protein for both people and, especially, animals (which consume about three-quarters of the global harvest), soya is a key part of the global food system. It is also a commodity for which China is heavily reliant on foreign suppliers — to the discomfort of its government.

“Food security is a deep-rooted issue with Chinese policymakers,” says Scott Rozelle, a development economist and expert on Chinese agriculture at Stanford University. Those roots lie in the ravages of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, a disastrous collectivisation campaign that caused widespread famine.

Rozelle adds that US food blockades against Japan during the second world war intensified Beijing’s obsession with food security. More recently, tensions with key agricultural trading partners and a spike in global food prices following the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have given the issue renewed salience. This is after decades of liberalising reforms that increased reliance on some foreign-sourced foods.