China’s public worries pointlessly about GM food

AMID AN ESCALATING trade war with America, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has tried to reassure a nervous public by insisting that his country can go it alone in its pursuit of tech supremacy. The Chinese people must “cast aside illusions and rely on ourselves”, he said in April soon after the first shots were fired. But in one technological realm, China appears less eager to surpass America: the development of genetically modified (GM) food crops. China was once a world leader in the field, but in the face of public opposition it now lags far behind (see chart). Unlike America, China restricts the commercial use of GM strains largely to non-food farming.

In 2016, after years of vacillation, the government looked ready to allow wider introduction of GM food crops. In a five-year planning document, released that year, it said that certain GM maize and soyabean varieties would be in commercial use by the end of the decade (an experiment with GM rice is pictured). But it has yet to convince the public to swallow the idea. A study published this year on the website of Nature, a British science journal, found that just over one in ten of respondents to a survey in China had a positive view of GM food. More than 45% were opposed to it. Only about 12% said they trusted information on the topic provided by their own government. Fewer than one-quarter said they had faith in scientists’ views. Nearly one in seven believed GM technology to be “a form of bioterrorism targeted at China”.