Who governs food security now? Why Beijing’s answer matters most

Who governs global food security when the world’s traditional guarantor steps back — and no single actor fully replaces it?

Three events over the past 18 months have made that question increasingly urgent. At the 2024 BRICS summit, Russia secured endorsement — including from Chinese President Xi Jinping — for a proposed BRICS Grain Exchange aimed at developing alternative agricultural trading arrangements. In 2025, the US froze nearly all foreign food aid, weakening its longstanding role in humanitarian assistance. More recently, China elevated food security in its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) while making it a priority of its 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) chairmanship.

These developments signal that global food governance is no longer anchored in a single multilateral architecture but is increasingly dispersed across overlapping institutions, regional frameworks, minilateral initiatives and bilateral partnerships.

China sits at the centre of this evolving landscape. As the world’s largest agricultural importer, it has a structural interest in stable, open and resilient food systems while simultaneously pursuing bilateral arrangements that strengthen its own supply security. Few countries operate across as many layers of contemporary food governance — from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to ASEAN, BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and APEC.

Ahead of the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November 2026, the central question is not who replaces the US, but whether China will use its unique cross-layer position to strengthen coordination — or allow fragmentation to define the emerging global food order.

From multilateral consensus to fragmented governance

For much of the post-World War II period, global food security rested on a broadly coherent multilateral architecture. Institutions such as the FAO, United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), CFS and World Trade Organization (WTO) collectively linked humanitarian relief, agricultural development and rules-based trade, reflecting a shared assumption that food security was best managed through international cooperation rather than geopolitical competition.

That consensus is now under strain. The Trump administration’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and withdrawal from foreign food assistance in 2025 signalled not simply reduced humanitarian funding, but a retreat from the political leadership that had long underpinned the system.

The consequences are visible. According to WFP, the agency raised US$6.5 billion last year — a 33% slump from US$9.8 billion in 2024 — forcing major reductions in emergency operations from Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the same time, development institutions including the World Bank and IFAD face growing funding constraints. 

The result is institutional diffusion: multilateral organisations remain indispensable, yet increasingly operate alongside bilateral, regional and minilateral arrangements driven by different strategic priorities — creating the conditions in which China’s role becomes structurally significant.

China’s multi-layered food governance strategy

The expanding role in food governance of China is largely driven by structural necessity. In 2024, it imported around 105 million tonnes of soybeans — roughly 60% of global trade — alongside volumes of grains and edible oils. This reliance leaves Beijing highly exposed to climate shocks, geopolitical tensions and supply disruptions, reinforcing a strong interest in stable international food markets.

This expanding role in food governance reflects the alignment of institutional engagement with domestic strategic priorities. Since Qu Dongyu, formerly China’s vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs, became FAO director-general in August 2019 — re-elected unopposed in July 2023 for a term running to July 2027 — China has gained greater visibility within the UN food system while concomitantly expanding South-South cooperation through the US$130 million FAO-China South-South Cooperation Trust Fund, agricultural technology centres and capacity-building programmes. The November 2025 Global South I-Dialogue on Agriculture further linked these global platforms to China’s wider development partnerships.

Domestic policy reinforces this external engagement. The 2019 State Council white paper explicitly commits China to actively participating in world food security governance — reflecting the view that internal resilience depends on international stability.

Fragmented food governance

China’s expanding engagement has unfolded alongside a broader shift in global food governance: the rise of parallel arrangements operating alongside, rather than replacing, established multilateral institutions. 

The proposed BRICS Grain Exchange illustrates this trend. Designed to develop alternative agricultural trading arrangements among BRICS members, it has been framed by Beijing as a tool for economic cooperation and market development. Others, however, see it as part of a broader effort to reduce dependence on Western-dominated commodity pricing and financial infrastructure. 

Whether or not implemented, the proposal underscores a wider shift: food is increasingly treated as a strategic economic asset, placing China simultaneously on both sides of the governance ledger — a champion of open trade at APEC and a signatory to an arrangement that some argue is designed to circumvent that system.

Other major actors are advancing similar hedging strategies. Russia has used agricultural exports, particularly grain dependency, as an instrument of geopolitical influence in Africa. Gulf states have expanded sovereign wealth fund investments in overseas farmland, notably in Sudan and Ethiopia, alongside strategic reserves and diversified sourcing outside multilateral frameworks.

While food-related international organisations can continue to play an important role (such as providing humanitarian coordination) that no bilateral or minilateral arrangement has yet to replicate at scale — their formal authority is increasingly mismatched with the parallel mechanisms shaping food security outcomes.

Shenzhen as a test of coordination 

This fragmented landscape raises a central question: where, if anywhere, coordination can still be achieved across these increasingly dispersed arrangements. Attention turns to APEC, one of the few institutions capable of bridging multiple layers of food governance simultaneously—and to China’s 2026 chairmanship as a potential test case for whether such coordination is still possible.

Beijing also has clear strategic incentives to make the forum work. Bilateral supply corridors cannot fully hedge against systemic shocks, as demonstrated by disruptions to global grain and fertiliser markets following the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russia war and the Strait of Hormuz crisis. From this perspective, multilateral market stability is strategic insurance rather than an ideological preference.

APEC also offers cross-bloc legitimacy through the participation of major producers and exporters, including major producer/exporters like Canada and Australia. As Agriculture Minister Han Jun stated at the 2025 APEC Food Security Ministerial in South Korea, China will “promote the establishment of a new, open, and interconnected pattern of agricultural cooperation in the Asia-Pacific”, framing regional coordination as serving China’s own interests.

Under the theme “Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together”, China has made food security a priority alongside openness, innovation and cooperation. Implementation is already underway through the APEC Policy Partnership on Food Security and the Food Security Roadmap Towards 2030. In this context, the food security ministerial meeting in Hangzhou later this year will provide an early indication of whether these priorities translate into substantive cooperation ahead of the leaders’ meeting in Shenzhen.

Yet the constraints are equally significant. China’s emphasis on food self-sufficiency, together with trade frictions involving major APEC economies, complicates consensus-building, while APEC’s voluntary, non-binding structure means implementation ultimately depends on member economies. China’s 2014 Beijing chairmanship produced a food security declaration that remained largely aspirational, underscoring the forum’s structural limits. Whether Shenzhen marks a departure will depend less on the rhetoric of November than on the policy commitments developed in the months beforehand.

Shenzhen will be a revealing test of direction. It will show whether China uses its position across multilateral, regional and bilateral food governance to strengthen coordination — or continues to deepen parallel arrangements alongside its multilateral commitments. The answer could shape not only China’s role in global food security, but also the trajectory of an emerging food order increasingly defined by the tension between coordination and fragmentation.

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