Food & Resource Security

The row of enormous storage tanks in Yancheng holds liquefied natural gas at a temperature of minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 162 degrees Celsius. When the gas is allowed to warm gradually to room temperature through a system of pipes, it expands 600-fold. The tanks in Yancheng are connected to a long pier into the Yellow Sea to unload L.N.G. from ships.

Papers published in Chinese engineering journals reveal the design breakthroughs involved in holding enormous quantities of supercooled natural gas, which can be explosive if ignited or warmed too quickly. Each storage tank has an outer concrete frame to provide rigidity. Inside the concrete walls is a second layer of flexible plates made from a special steel alloy with a lot of manganese and nickel. Sophisticated robots weld the plates.

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LAUNCESTON, Australia, April 16 (Reuters) - China continued to build the world's largest stockpile of crude oil in March even as the rest of the world started to draw on inventories to compensate for the loss of millions of barrels from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. China, the world's biggest crude importer, had surplus oil of 1.74 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, according to calculations based on official data. For the first quarter China's ‌excess crude was 1.41 million bpd, down from the record high of 2.67 million bpd in December but up from the average of 1.13 million bpd for the whole of 2025.

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The continuing building of China's crude stockpiles in March came as imports were largely unaffected by the conflict in the Middle East, which started on February 28 when the United States and Israel launched an aerial campaign against Iran. The oil delivered to China in March would have exited the Strait of Hormuz prior to the conflict's start, but imports from April onwards are likely to be affected.

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Abstract

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This article examines China’s comprehensive mobilization policies undertaken since the early 2020s. Analysis reveals that they span multiple domains. First, China is developing a protected inland reserve of critical industrial capacity. Second, it is strengthening emergency supply mechanisms and accelerating the accumulation of food and raw-material reserves. Third, it is enhancing civil defense and urban infrastructure resilience, including the expansion of the ‘people’s air defense’ system. Fourth, recently amended legislation now regulates military service and the government’s obligations towards fallen servicemen’s families. The scope and pace of these measures indicate that Beijing anticipates a severe military-political crisis in the coming decade. This partly explains Chinese foreign policy’s apparent contradictions, with stated global ambitions coexisting alongside strategic caution and risk aversion.

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Beijing is coordinating central and provincial government, state-owned enterprises and financial institutions around

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. It has licensed the commercialisation of genetically modified maize and soya. Research clusters are forming around

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, fermentation-derived ingredients, feed additives and agricultural biotechnology. State banks are on hand to provide cheap finance. To channel demand, Beijing is tightening food and feed standards and tweaking procurement requirements.

This is the kind of whole-system policy that has given China a commanding lead in the new energy sectors. With all the levers in play, we may, by as early as 2030, see a significant fall in soyabean demand, slashing imports from the US dramatically. By 2040, innovation and efficiency gains could plausibly turn China into a net exporter of poultry, dairy, eggs, fish and seafood. If agriculture follows the industrial policy timeline, by 2050 we should expect to see China emerging as a major source of

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”.

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