Chinese UN envoy calls for food-security cooperation

China's top envoy to the United Nations on Thursday urged the international community to oppose "actions that affect global food security and cooperation", such as disrupting market orders and suppressing foreign companies.

"We must firmly oppose actions that affect global food security and international cooperation, such as unilateral sanctions, decoupling and severing supply chains, disrupting market order and suppressing enterprises from other countries," Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN, said at a UN Security Council open debate on famine and conflict-induced global food insecurity.

"China urges relevant countries to immediately stop such practices which lack legal foundations and also contradict fairness and justice," he added.

Without common security in the world, it is difficult to achieve sustainable food security, Zhang said.

"We should uphold the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, stay committed to settling disputes through peaceful means and promoting dialogue, and respond to various challenges including food insecurity in the spirit of unity and mutual benefit," the ambassador said.

Zhang called on the international community to address the issue of food insecurity within the framework of global macroeconomic policy coordination and sustainable development.

He further emphasized that developed countries "should cancel unreasonable agricultural subsidies and adopt reasonable monetary policies, (and) reduce the impact of factors including imported inflation and exchange-rate fluctuations on food security in developing countries".

"At the same time, it is necessary for developed countries to earnestly fulfill their official development assistance commitments, refrain from imposing technology blockade, or resorting to 'small yards and high fence'," Zhang said.

He said the international community should accelerate technology transfer and application and the sharing of knowledge in areas such as biology, digital and space to create better conditions for developing countries to strengthen capacity building and achieve sustainable development.

The most severely affected victims of the food crisis are all, without exception, developing countries, Zhang pointed out.

Food insecurity is "essentially the result of insufficient and unbalanced development worldwide and a concrete manifestation of the development gap between the North and the South", said Zhang.

"It is closely related to the longstanding, unjust and unreasonable food production and trade system and the global governance system as a whole," he added.

The international community should seize opportunities to address both the symptoms and root causes, improve rules and regulations, and improve global food and agriculture governance on institutional and rules-making levels. It also should focus on increasing the representation, voice and decision-making power of developing countries, Zhang said.

"Efforts should be made to remove the restrictions of unilateral sanctions on food production and exports, combat speculative capital and price monopoly, and build a safe, stable, unimpeded, efficient, open, inclusive and mutually beneficial industrial and supply chain system as well as a fairer and more reasonable international food trade order," said Zhang.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative is a UN-brokered initiative agreed to by Russia, Turkey and Ukraine to ensure that Ukraine could export its food and fertilizer to the rest of the world.

More than 32 million tons of food commodities have been exported from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports to 45 countries across three continents, according to the UN. Russia suspended participation in the grain deal in July and said it will return to the Black Sea grain deal if its interests are secured.