Daily bread

“SELF-RELIANCE” is a notion now more closely associated with the juche doctrine of North Korea than with China. Indeed, the Chinese have profited handsomely from ditching such isolationism. But a little-noticed comment by Xi Jinping, China’s president, shows how, amid all the change, old thinking dies hard. Visiting farmers in Hubei province in July, Mr Xi said, “We must rely on ourselves for grain security.”

In the early 1960s, even as tens of millions of Chinese starved in a brutal famine, Mao Zedong was reluctant to import grain. Now, though, China is deeply integrated into global commodity markets. It is not alone: Japan and South Korea both import 73% of the grain they consume. Saudi Arabia imports 87%. Yet official policy in China still calls for 95% of China’s grain demand to be met by domestic production.