Human society has entered the era of hot weapons from the age of cold weapons, and then to the era of economic and trade wars, and the wars between countries have become invisible, and the "food war" between China and the United States after the millennium is the most obvious example.
"Food is a weapon", the four major international grain merchants: ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus Company, control more than 80% of the world's grain trade, and the first three giants are all from the United States.
In 2003, the four major grain merchants joined forces to short China's soybeans, making China the world's largest soybean importer, and China's soybean market and oil crushing market were hit unprecedentedly.
Just five years later, the four major grain merchants once again set their sights on China, trying to completely control China's food security, but they did not want to run into the grain reserves that had been prepared for a long time.
First, the first meeting
There is a saying in the "Book of Songs": "The Central Plains are soybean, and the small people pick them." Among them, "soybean" is soybean.
China has a history of soybean cultivation for thousands of years, and it is also the country of origin of soybeans, until the thirties of the last century, China's soybean production and quality have been ranked first in the world all year round.
As a high-quality plant protein, soybeans can not only be made into tofu, yuba, soy milk and other foods, but also can be squeezed for oil, after pressing soybeans are called soybean meal, which can be used to brew soy sauce, make protein powder supplements, and is the main raw material for making livestock feed.
Compared to soybean cultivation in China, the United States started even later.
The first soybean seeds that crossed the ocean to the United States were in 1804, and the United States did not realize that soybeans themselves are rich in protein and oil, and there is an extremely considerable room for profit.
In 1929, an American named Morse traveled to Northeast and North China to collect more than 4,451 soybean samples, and three years later, he returned to the United States with 66 boxes of research results, and he became known as the "father of American soybeans."
At this time, China was suffering from internal and external troubles, the people were in the midst of war, and the Nationalist Government was even more scattered, and no one cared about agriculture or economic issues.
After Morse brought the results of soybean research back to the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took a high level of attention to it, and by 1942, the soybean planting area in the United States was as high as 10 million acres, and the output accounted for 46.5% of the international market, which was basically the same as China.
After the 70s of the 20th century, the United States began to study transgenic technology, and with the help of genetic modification, it successfully cultivated soybean varieties with high yield, abundant oil yield and susceptibility to insect pests.
Due to the protective nature of monopoly capital, the United States has always paid attention to technological property rights, and all countries in the world must ask the United States to buy seeds if they want to plant genetically modified soybeans, and the position of American soybeans in the international community has gradually stabilized.
Unlike the large-scale, specialized farming in the United States, China's soybean cultivation is basically retail, although the output is stable, but with the enrichment of the population, economy and industrial chain, domestic production of soybeans has been difficult to support the demand.
By 2001, when China formally joined the WTO, China's soybean import and export trade gap was completely subverted by the United States.
Second, there is no return
China's accession to the WTO remains a classic in the history of multilateral trade negotiations in the world.
In the three-stage, 15-year talks, 25 rounds of Sino-US talks and 15 rounds of Sino-EU talks were held, and the United States is undoubtedly the biggest obstacle to China's accession to the WTO.
China has a vast market, and once it participates in global economic and trade exchanges, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages for most countries, and the goal of the United States is only to set up as many obstacles as possible so that China can make concessions.
Sure enough, in the final negotiations, China had to sign an agricultural cooperation agreement with the United States, the two most critical points of which were to allow the import of American wheat and remove the soybean import quota.
Import quotas, in layman's terms, set a red line, once the quantity of a product imported exceeds a certain percentage, it can no longer be imported. Not only does it protect local firms, but it also protects an industry from foreign capital, a red line that is particularly important in the area of food security.
The reason why China agreed to cancel the soybean import quota was that soybeans were used for a single purpose at that time, which was generally used to produce oil, and the domestic plants that could replace soybeans were peanuts and rapeseeds, and second, compared with other cash crops, the input-output ratio of soybeans was not cost-effective.
In Northeast China, the same 40 million hectares of land, the output of soybeans is 75 million tons, and the output of other food products can reach more than 200 million tons, China's local soybean oil production is 5% lower than that of genetically modified soybeans in the United States, and the price is naturally more expensive than imports.
At home and abroad, when talking about China's accession to the WTO, they all say that China has hitched a free ride on the global economic development, but they do not care about the price paid by China.
In fact, with the development of pork and animal husbandry, the importance of soybean meal has become more and more prominent, from soybean oil extraction to soybean meal feed to pig farming, this interlocking industrial chain has begun to be affected by the continuous impact of international soybean price fluctuations.
In 2001, China imported more than 10 million tons of soybeans, a full 10-fold increase from four years ago, and directly on par with the total domestic soybean production, of which two-thirds of the imported soybeans came from the United States.
It is undoubtedly a signal for the United States and the four major grain merchants who have long been eyeing China's soybean market.
In the summer of 2003, the maturity period of soybeans in the United States is coming, in addition to China, soybean oil enterprises and feed companies in many countries around the world are waiting to trade with the United States, at this time, the domestic soybean price is about 2,300 yuan a ton, which is in the normal price range.
But just half a month later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture suddenly issued an announcement, claiming that due to the weather and sudden insect infestations, the U.S. soybean output is expected to be the lowest in the last 20 years, and the government's endorsement and the operation of Wall Street financial giants, the price of U.S. soybeans soared from 2,300 yuan a ton in August 2003 to 4,400 yuan a ton in just six months.
China has only been in the WTO for a short time, and has not seen the means of foreign capital operation, so when watching soybean prices continue to rise, some domestic oil merchants can not sit still at all.
Several large edible oil manufacturers joined forces to buy 8 million tons of U.S. soybeans at a high price of 4,400 yuan a ton, in order to seize the supply and control other small soybean farmers in China.
After U.S. soybean producers cooperated with Chinese companies to hoard hundreds of tons of high-priced soybeans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture once again sang and harmonized with Wall Street, the former announced to increase soybean exports, and the latter took advantage of the trend to short soybean prices, and two months later, soybean prices fell to 2,200 yuan a ton, lower than in previous years.
One wrong step, one wrong step, in this well-designed layout, thousands of domestic soybean planting enterprises, processing plants, edible oil producers, all lost, more than 85% of the domestic soybean industry share is controlled by the four major grain merchants.
Third, repeat the old tricks
In the following years, the domestic soybeans originally with the northeast as the main production area began to decline all the way, while Tianjin, Jiangsu, Shandong and other coastal areas, because of the increase in imported soybeans, hundreds of large-scale oil processing enterprises landed, and most of these enterprises are foreign capital holdings.
There are pros and cons to everything, the first confrontation between China and the United States ended in the fiasco of Chinese soybeans, but after eating a trench and growing wise, foreign capital means were exhausted, and finally they were compensated by the same tricks, and this time, it was China Grain Reserves that struck.
In 1990, the State Council issued a proclamation to establish a special national grain reserve system in order to solve the problem of peasants' difficulty in selling grain during the harvest period.
By 2000, the establishment of the China Grain Reserve was formally completed, and the management of the national grain reserve entered a new stage of development.
China Grain Reserves, the full name of China Grain Reserves Management Group, is a large-scale state-owned backbone enterprise approved by the State Council, and is an important strategic carrier related to the national economy, people's livelihood and national economic security.
In the wake of the setback in the soybean war, the government has become increasingly aware of the close relationship between food security and economic stability.
The four major grain merchants joined forces to lay out China's soybean industry, which is nothing more than to see that the Chinese market contains huge profits, and after tasting the sweetness of soybeans, they are not willing to stop there.
Behind the four major grain merchants, in fact, is the hegemonic capital of the United States.
As early as 1954, the United States passed an "International Aid Act", saying that the United States could sell surplus grain at low prices, borrow or give it away to provide assistance to food-deficit countries around the world.
There is no profit and it is not early, and the profit-seeking nature of capital makes this bill not as friendly as it seems.
The most typical example is the events in Chile around 1970.
At that time, the United States and the Soviet Union were in the Cold War, and in order to win over Chile, the United States provided it with 4 million tons of food aid, but at that time, Chile's domestic food shortage was only 2 million tons, and this extra 2 million tons of aid became a huge hidden danger affecting Chile's local grain production and sales.
In 1970, Chile's new President Allende carried out drastic reforms, trying to get rid of the control of the Chilean economy by US imperial capital, but he did not want to anger the three major grain merchants in the United States and directly raise Chilean grain prices to the highest level, triggering domestic inflation and a complete collapse of the economy in Chile.
Allende was killed in the line of duty after just three years of stepping down and leaving his last speech to his fellow Chileans.
Such an approach by the United States is no stranger to third world countries.
In 2008, when the whole country was celebrating the Beijing Olympics, the four major grain merchants once again set off an international grain harvest war in an attempt to short China again.
Fourth, grain storage in the "defeat".
Around 2008, European and American countries used grain to produce fuel ethanol, national grain stocks were tight, global food prices were soaring, and the four major grain merchants also acted randomly to purchase a large amount of international grain in an attempt to keep international grain prices at a high level.
In order to cover up their own purposes, the four major grain merchants did not point the finger at China at the beginning, but started with the grain purchase of China's neighboring countries, and did not start to eat the grain stored in China until all the grain sold in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America was almost purchased.
The four major grain merchants continue to eat, and the grain reserves in China continue to sell. From the original sale once a month, shortened to half a month, to the start of the Olympic Games, the grain war has entered a white heat, and the grain storage actually sells off the inventory every other day!
At this time, it is the four major grain merchants who are panicking, and they can't figure out how much grain is still in the hands of the grain storage!
Just when the four major grain merchants were hesitant and did not know whether to continue to eat, China Grain Reserves directly released the news that China's surplus grain reserves are enough to feed and clothe 1.4 billion people in the whole country for a whole year! The rations of more than one billion people, not to mention just four multinational corporations, even if the United States and Europe join forces to short China, they have to weigh their own national treasury!
The four major grain merchants had no ability to continue eating, and seeing that the grain harvest was about to be harvested in the new year, they had to quickly clear their stocks, and global grain prices immediately returned to normal.
The four major grain merchants lost hundreds of billions of dollars in this grain war, and at the same time, the financial crisis that swept the global capitalist countries broke out overnight after the collapse of Wall Street in the United States.
This financial crisis is the fastest spreading and most destructive financial crisis since World War II, only a very few countries in the world have not faced the tragic situation of a comprehensive economic collapse, China is one of them, and after the financial crisis, the biggest engine of global economic development is also China!
China has a history of thousands of years of agriculture and even thousands of years of military struggle, and when it joined the international system dominated by the capitalist economy, China paid the price, but it also learned from the price, and redoubled the tricks that the four major grain merchants had tried and tested against many countries.
After Trump took office, the United States regarded international economic and trade treaties as nothing, launched a trade war against China again, and imposed tariffs on Chinese goods in an attempt to make China retreat.
China and the United States, as the world's two largest economies, affect the world's countries with their every move, and in the face of the United States' step-by-step pressure, China has no choice but to take countermeasures, and the American people may have more say in who is ultimately affected.
V. Conclusion
China's accession to the WTO has always been based on mutual benefit and mutual prosperity, not a zero-sum game. In order to stabilize the domestic soybean market, the government has invested heavily to build a soybean production protection area of 100 million mu, and at the same time improve the level of mechanization, improve soybean varieties, and provide domestic soybean production.
Ever since Yuan Lao cultivated hybrid rice, the Chinese have held the root of grain in their own hands.
From the initial 82 grain depots directly under the grain storage to the tens of thousands of grain depots and entrusted grain depots all over the country, the existence of the grain storage is not used to manipulate the international grain market, but to ensure the mainland's own food security.
Starting from the soybean war in 2003 and storing grain in 2008 when the four major grain merchants were defeated, China did not disdain to use economic means to embroider legs, but to develop its own industry in a solid manner.
Behind all this is the mainland's complete industrial system, huge domestic market, and abundant real estate resources, rather than virtual stock markets and futures.