China is the world's largest agricultural economy and the leading producer and consumer of many agricultural commodities. In recent years, its massive population and tremendous income growth have fuelled a rapid increase in both the quantity and quality of food and fibre consumed. While China has met much of its needs by increasing domestic production, it has also emerged as a leading global importer of several agricultural commodities, including cotton, soy beans, vegetable oils, and hides and skins. China's increase in imports has benefited its trade partners significantly, but only for a narrow range of products. This book provides information and analysis regarding the conditions of competition in China's agricultural market and trade and their effects on U.S. agricultural exports.

This title was first published in 2003. This prominent and commanding volume collates the best research available on China's agricultural trade. Critically analyzing the agricultural supply and demand factors that underlie trade patterns such as agricultural productivity and policy, it also explores China's agricultural trade and policy including implications for China and elsewhere. Long term issues and productivity growth are taken into consideration, as are specific issues such as WTO accession. The slate of authors combines the leading established scholars in the field and the best of the next generation, including those from China and the West.

China’s rapid rise as a leading global exporter of manufacturing goods since its accession to the WTO in 2001 has been the focus of both admiration and, increasingly, concern, but China is also a large importer of goods, particularly agricultural products. Since China's accession to the WTO, China agricultural exports have increased by 8 percent annually while imports have risen by almost twice that rate. China has become the world's largest importer of agricultural products and the first or second largest destination for many of the world's top agricultural exporters such as the US, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Argentina. This paper examines the evolution of China's agricultural trade since accession and discusses how agricultural trade policy and domestic support policies have evolved, with particularly emphasis on China's experience as complainant and respondent in WTO trade disputes.

It is a cliché that China is the world's manufactured goods factory, but most observers are just as certain that China's farmers are a serious burden on growth. Yet China in fact has the makings of an internationally competitive agricultural sector, with the market setting most prices, farmers shifting quickly toward what they produce best, and significant research and development focused on biotechnology and other promising areas. China's trade interests are changing as its farmers become more competitive, and this transformation will have major implications for world trade talks and global economic welfare. This study traces the steps China has taken to make agriculture a winning sector, the evidence that its initiatives are working, and the course the country is likely to take.