The news that President Xi is busy building Chinese food security will come as no surprise to anyone who has watched his rise to power.
Xi is known to be a big admirer of his most notorious predecessor, Chairman Mao, but understandably does not want to engineer another great famine.
Just last week, the Chinese leader showed the world he now has overall control of the Communist Party by having former president Hu Jintao the one living person who had the power to challenge him removed from a political congress.
For Xi then, opposition silenced, it is easy to play the long game. For politicians here in the UK, things are different.
One of the few downsides to democracy is the fact that it encourages short-term thinking. Party leaders are obsessed with the instant news cycle and often take decisions which are popular today, but not best for tomorrow.
The energy crisis the country currently faces is a case in point, but the same short-termism applies to Government policy on food security.
It is clear, though, that this is an issue which can no longer be ignored.
We live in increasingly volatile times, with China stockpiling key staples and Putins Russia showing it is not afraid to play games with the worlds grain supplies.
The pandemic also revealed countries such as India are not above blocking exports to protect their own food security.
Food nationalism is on the rise, and we can no longer expect if we ever could that our imports will remain secure.
UK retail supply chains, which have up until now demonstrated extraordinary resilience, are already having difficulty filling certain gaps on shelves.
Over summer, Rishi Sunak seemed to demonstrate an understanding of the seriousness of the issue.
In an exclusive article written for Íæż½ã½ã during the Conservative leadership campaign, he promised to set a domestic food production target and personally chair a UK-wide food security summit every year.
But now, we need to hold him to account on those promises. We cannot afford for them to be broken.
