Officials and industry leaders highlight rising demand and deeper cooperation

Soybeans, carried as ballast on the return voyage from Asia to America some 200 years ago, have become a ballast of China-US agricultural trade.

Susan Thornton, former acting US assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, offered the historical footnote to a room where "ballast" had already become the word of the day.

"So that kind of makes this word ballast even more, I think, essential for our US-China agricultural trade," she told the gathering, organized by the US Soybean Export Council, or USSEC, during its annual Soy Connext conference held in Chicago on Friday.

The event drew US and Chinese officials, US soy industry leaders, and a Chinese delegation of traders and representatives from oil crushing, food and feed companies.

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Chinese Consul General in Chicago Wang Baodong said soybeans have served for many years "as an important bridge in China-US agricultural cooperation, and the soybean trade has been a ballast of the broader part for economic and trade relationship".

China is home to the world's largest market for agricultural products, he noted, and high-quality US soybeans help meet rising demand from Chinese consumers while generating income and supporting jobs in US farm communities.

Those were the good old days, Wang said, recalling that 2022 marked the highest level ever for US agricultural and soybean exports to China. The good old days, he added, came to an abrupt halt last year.

"The US government launched the tariff and trade war against China, and China was compelled to take necessary countermeasures, and as a result, soybean trade between our two countries was disrupted for a period of time, and American farmers became a victim and bore much of the cost, which was never an outcome China wished to see," he said.

"There are no winners in tariff and trade wars," Wang said. "As we see it, equality, mutual respect, and mutual benefit remain the right way for China and the US to get along with each other and achieve win-win cooperation."

Wang also pointed to the opportunity for US soy farmers. This year marks the beginning of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, he said, with the country advancing high-quality development and high-standard opening-up while continuing to improve its business and investment environment.

Promising prospects

As living standards keep rising, he said, Chinese demand for agricultural products from around the world, including the United States, will continue to grow. The prospects for high-quality US soybean exports to China, in his view, remain promising.

Cao Derong, president of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-Products, or CFNA, echoed the view. "Economic and trade relations should continue to serve as the ballast and propeller of China-US relations, not as barriers or flashpoints," Cao said in a video message.

The CFNA remains committed to maintaining and strengthening exchanges between the Chinese and US soybean sectors, Cao said.

He said the chamber this year hosted a visiting US soybean association delegation as well as representatives from the Indiana Soybean Alliance, and said he hoped to see dialogue between the two sides deepen further.

Mike McCranie, chair of USSEC, has watched that relationship grow alongside his own career. He first visited China in 1982 and raised his first soybeans 40 years ago.

"It has changed a lot since then. I have been to China five times, developing great relationships. I really value those relationships," he said.

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Thornton described the trade as a "textbook case" of two economies growing into each other.

US soybean yields have skyrocketed in recent decades on the back of technology and precision agriculture, she said, and that leap coincided with China's dramatic rise in living standards and a growing appetite for pork and poultry, which in turn drove the demand for livestock feed.

The United States and China operate two of the most complex food systems in the world, and she described them as highly complementary.

As major producers, consumers and traders of agricultural products, the two countries share a responsibility to ensure the global food supply remains stable, sustainable, high-quality and abundant, she said.

Contact the writers at liazhu@chinadailyusa.com