Domestic and international implications of reorienting China’s meat and feed import policies through unilateral liberalization

• We model reoriented feed and meat imports in China via unilateral liberalization. • Importing less feed and more meats leads to domestic tradeoffs but overall benefits. • Rising meat imports improves China’s food security and import diversification. • Globally, it benefits major meat exporters, with slight expense for feed producers. • Liberalizing China’s meat imports improves China’s and global economic welfare. China’s vast livestock sector depends on massive feed grain and oilseeds imports from relatively few suppliers. In contrast, its meat imports, still a relatively small share of its domestic consumption, can be sourced from more suppliers. This study investigates the potential impacts of the reorientation of soybean and meat imports on China’s food security and the associated global spillover effects. We simulate a series of hypothetical unilateral tariff reductions and non-tariff measure relaxation scenarios on meat imports by China, using the GTAP model and a recalibrated GTAP database. Our results indicate that: 1) rising meat imports can help reduce China’s reliance on soybean and maize imports and support its import diversification efforts, especially through reductions of tariff barriers and nontariff measures on pig meats; 2) such a transition promotes diversification in China’s agricultural production structure, reducing maize acreage while encouraging the cultivation of rice, wheat, soybeans, fruits and vegetables, thus strengthening food security in a “Greater Food” approach; 3) at the global scale, this transition can reshape the global grain production structure, benefiting major meat-exporting countries at the expense of feed grain producers.