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China is a net importer of grain from North and South America, and those trade routes will definitely be cut off. China only has the capacity to feed 65% of its domestic consumption: if you switch everyone to just eating rice you still don’t have enough to square that circle. And the problem is getting worse: by 2030 their self sufficiency will be in the 58%. China doss not make enough food to feed its people, not by a long shot.
Food security should not mean '% of all peacetime food that is produced domestically' but '% of minimum food produced necessary to avoid health problems'. Rising demand means people wanting better Australian lobster, extra grain or preferring foreign milk to domestic milk (for admittedly understandable reasons), not that China is incapable of providing enough grain or whatever is needed to sustain its population and workforce.
If grain from overseas is cut off they can buy from Russia and Central Asia instead. They can rationalize production away from wine or whatever else they grow. They can eat into stockpiles. They can rationalize consumption. The existence of significant obesity in China proves that peacetime consumption is higher than needed.
Britain imported 60% of its food in 1939 yet found ways to cope with an imperfect blockade. China can do the same because their actual food security is not the same as domestic production as a % of peacetime food consumption.
They can do all of these things way more than Taiwan can, in relative terms, which is why I maintain that food security is not a big problem for China like it is for Taiwan.
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