Xi Jinping fears US will try to starve China into submission

Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping thinks the United States and its allies could deprive China of food in a crisis, an assessment underpinning a frank call for self-sufficiency.

Chinese Communist officials have struggled to feed the country for decades, particularly during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, which caused a famine that killed an estimated 30 million people from 1959 to 1961. Xi alluded to “the time of no grain” but cast the memory as motivation to fortify national security against external threats.