Rich nations tell citizens to stockpile for crises. Why not China?

(Edited and refined by Bai Kelei, with the assistance of AI translation.)

On 26 October, former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino urged Americans to stock up as soon as possible on at least three days’ worth of food, drinking water and other emergency supplies. His appeal came in response to the US Department of Defence’s announcement of its FORTRESS doomsday programme, intended to ensure that military bases can continue operating for at least 90 days even if civilian infrastructure collapses.

On a similar note, the UK government launched its “Be Ready” emergency preparedness campaign, asking households to store enough essential supplies for 72 hours. The EU introduced its European Preparedness Union Strategy, while Germany has raised its self-sufficiency target to ten days. Japan has long urged people to keep at least three days, but preferably a week’s worth, of necessities at home.

These warnings have all come from developed countries, with others yet to follow suit. This seems to suggest that developed countries either have information about impending disasters or are trying to change how people think and behave. Disasters can arise from extreme weather, earthquakes and other natural hazards, as well as human conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war.

Some countries, however, are already engulfed in disaster without any need for warnings. In Sudan, nearly 20 million people, or about 45% of the population, face the threat of severe acute hunger — a compound disaster in which civil war, economic collapse, climate change and obstructions to humanitarian aid are intertwined.

Ending era of zero inventory

The current warnings from developed countries to stock up on food have a particular significance in that they also seek to change attitudes and habits shaped by a long period of peace. People in developed countries have long grown accustomed to convenient and efficient welfare provision and smoothly functioning supply chains. Drinking water flows from the tap; a few swipes on a phone bring food to the door within 30 minutes; and when disaster strikes, there is the government’s rescue response during the golden 72 hours. People have thus become accustomed to the convenience of a “zero-inventory” lifestyle.

But extreme weather events, increasingly complex large-scale social systems and the effects of war have stretched modern governments’ ability to provide all-encompassing assistance in the early stages of a disaster, sometimes to breaking point. In the information age, rescue takes time when war, cyberattacks or natural disasters cause widespread internet outages, communications failures, or water and power disruptions. Rescue teams may not be able to reach everyone in time.

By urging people to prepare three to ten days’ worth of supplies, governments are essentially using legislation or official initiatives to “outsource” part of the responsibility for survival in the early stages of a crisis to households and individuals. This decentralised approach is intended to prevent shortages from triggering widespread humanitarian chaos within 48 hours of the first external shock.

Guarding against sabotage and hybrid threats

It is also clear that developed countries’ disaster preparedness checklists are explicitly geared towards human-made threats. In the past, preparedness meant guarding against floods, storms, earthquakes and landslides. Today, the underlying concerns are internet outages, severed supply chains and covert sabotage of critical infrastructure.

Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in particular, many European countries have been deeply troubled by “hybrid warfare” and asymmetric security threats. These include the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, frequent damage to critical fibre-optic communications cables, and cyberattacks on substations causing widespread blackouts.

Therefore, it is no surprise that developed countries’ contingency plans have long recognised that the effects of armed conflict spill over into civilian systems. In the US, the Department of Defence’s FORTRESS programme to address the loss of critical resources and systems, alongside frequent statements from the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, is steering disaster preparedness towards resilience across all domains in the context of great-power competition.

Japan is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, and faces the prospect of war in East Asia. Recently, its minister responsible for disaster management issued an “urgent request” for people to stock up on three to seven days’ worth of supplies. The most immediate catalyst was an escalation of warnings from experts that the probability of a major Nankai Trough earthquake has been raised to 75%-82%, with a substantial risk that it could also trigger an eruption of Mount Fuji. Japan’s appeal is therefore not political theatre, but an effort to push civil defence capabilities to the limit in the face of an “inevitable, ultimate natural catastrophe”.

China did not issue any similar urgent appeals recently, but in November 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and 13 other ministries and agencies formally issued a plan that introduced a national recommended list of basic household emergency supplies. It includes at least three days’ worth of canned and instant food and three litres of drinking water per person per day; emergency items such as torches, whistles and multifunctional knives; and first-aid supplies such as plasters, iodine swabs and common emergency medicines.

In fact, it is only in the past few decades that people in China have had enough to eat, after a 1978 grassroots experiment in Anhui province’s Xiaogang village led to the Household Responsibility System. For a long time, Chinese people lived with hunger and material scarcity. In government administration, cultural attitudes and everyday household management alike, they believed in anticipating danger in times of peace, preparing for it and thereby averting trouble. They also prepare for lean times when resources are plentiful, rather than spend as though there will always be enough.

Material abundance and the arrival of the information age have brought enormous changes to how people in China live. They have gotten used to highly convenient e-commerce, food delivery and on-demand logistics, and rarely stock up on food or water at home. So, any official appeal to “stock up on daily necessities” can provoke a strong public reaction.

In November 2021, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued the Notice on Ensuring Supplies and Stable Prices of Vegetables and Other Daily Necessities This Winter and Next Spring. A sentence in it that encouraged households to stock up on daily necessities accordingly caused an uproar online and even triggered panic buying in some areas, as people speculated about a possible change to the cross-strait situation or tighter pandemic lockdowns. Officials subsequently rushed to clarify that this was merely routine guidance in preparation for extreme weather in the autumn and winter months.

This may explain why China has not followed developed countries in calling on people to stock up on food. It also shows that in peacetime, official campaigns promoting routine stockpiling in societies that are highly dependent on supply chains must tread very carefully between raising awareness of crises and avoiding mass panic.

Taiwan prepares for wartime blockade

While Taiwan did not issue an appeal to stock up on food, its public education programme includes emergency supplies for both sheltering in place and evacuations. The former covers situations in which homes remain structurally safe to stay in after a major earthquake or a storm disrupts water, electricity and logistics. People are advised to have at least a week’s worth of supplies, up from three days previously. These include food that does not require refrigeration, high-calorie dry rations, three litres of drinking water per person per day, regular medicines and ample pet food. The latter involves preparing an emergency grab bag, or earthquake kit, for situations in which damage to a home threatens lives and residents must immediately flee to a shelter or open space.

Taiwan’s disaster preparedness goes beyond earthquakes and typhoons. Its civil defence guidance accounts for geopolitical tensions by fully incorporating the principles of “wartime survival” and “withstanding a blockade”. The Taiwan government also published a public safety handbook that covers natural disaster drills with protection against air raids, widespread internet outages and cognitive warfare, as well as identifying disinformation and evacuating in wartime. It advises people on how to locate nearby air-raid shelters, such as basements and metro stations, even when their phones are offline. It also urges every household to broaden its approach to emergency supplies and improve its ability to remain self-sufficient if critical infrastructure breaks down completely.

Real resilience begins at home

There is no need to regard this latest round of appeals from developed countries to prepare emergency supplies as a sign that war or the end of the world is imminent. Instead, it should prompt a comprehensive review of our own safety. Given our reliance on digitalisation, centralised systems and global supply chains, we need mechanisms and capabilities to cope with sudden disasters. These government appeals simply remind us that despite the wonders of modern technology, our survival should not depend entirely on the internet, the power grid and logistics networks. The resilience of individuals and nations should rest not on panic buying, but on routine preparedness.

Individuals can follow government checklists and gradually purchase long-life dehydrated food, drinking water, basic medical supplies and offline communications equipment such as radios. Even those accustomed to electronic payments should keep a little cash at home. Those who rely on navigation apps should also have a paper map of their local area.

When facing an unknown disaster, having at least a few days’ worth of supplies and the confidence to cope calmly on one’s own is the better response to this wave of “disaster preparedness initiatives” sweeping the world.

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