(November 15, 2013 at 2:18 pm)Chuck Wrote: The Chinese rationale for getting a foot in the door of Egyptian food supply is pure geopolitics, and has nothing to do with Chinese food supply. The truth is Egypt can't even feed itself and has relied on subsidized food imports to feed its own citizens since at least the 1960s. There is not even the slightest possibility of the farms along Nile being used to export food back to China.
The truth is the recent Egyptian political upheavel has its ultimate roots in China. China like Egypt, has also lost the ability to feed its own citizens and has had to resort to large scale food imports since the late 1990s. But China is now importing food on such a huge scale that the world prices for food has shot up. China has the ability to keep paying the higher prices, but Egypt doesn't. Egptian government under Mubarek basically bankrupted itself subsidizing food imports to keep domestic food prices low and lower classes contented. When Egyptian government finally ran out of money and stopped subsidizing the food, popular discontent rose and Mubarek is overthrown.
Egypt is in no better situation now. It still can't grow enough food to feed itself, it's government is still bankrupt, and it needs massive subsidies from Saudi-Arabia to keep paying for its own food import needs. So the Chinese undoubtedly calculating that by buying up any domestic food production capacity in Egypt, when the prices are cheap due to uncertainty surrounding political stability, it could in effect put a knife to the jugular of any future Egyptian government.
Lester Brown of the Ny Times seems to think differently for some reason
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/opinio....html?_r=0
