“History teaches that China and the United States gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation” was part of the congratulatory note from Xi Jinping to President-elect Trump. Xi also stressed both sides should continue to uphold “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.” The cooperation between these two superpowers began in 1972 when President Richard Nixon and Premier Zhou Enlai signed the Shanghai Communiqué, years before they established diplomatic relations. 

Agricultural exchanges created by Shanghai Communiqué planted the first “seeds” that grew into decades of US-Chinese collaboration and open trade relations. Coordinated by the National Academy of Sciences, a group of Chinese agricultural scientists visited the United States in 1973 to learn about insect control in crops. Six more Chinese agricultural groups followed, and five US groups traveled to China. These successful exchanges helped open the door to the Science and Technology (S&T) Agreement that was signed in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping established diplomatic relations. 

The agreement set the framework for government agencies, universities, and other organizations to cooperate across a broad range of S&T issues. Besides launching 40+ years of agricultural exchanges and scientific research, the agreement catalyzed joint research in chemistry, earth, and atmospheric sciences and opened up cooperation on climate change, health, environmental protection, energy and more. 

Over the decades, US and Chinese agricultural scientists have focused on common threats to food security and safety, from climate resilient crops and livestock to preventing plant and animal diseases. This agricultural cooperation could end as the S&T Agreement expired in August 2024 without being renewed. Many doors for cooperation on clean energy and health have already shut due to fears of competition and conflict. However, agriculture remains a rare, non-competitive area, making a renewed agreement vital to protecting food security, safety, and farmer livelihoods in both countries.

Scientists Dig into Pests, Green Revolution, and More

The first Chinese team in 1973 paved the way for later researchers to learn about grain, cotton, soybean, citrus production, and agricultural mechanization. “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Texas” is how Tom Gold, a Harvard graduate student assigned to escort two of the groups, described these whirlwind agricultural tours.

With the goal of exchanging seeds and plant materials to develop higher yielding grain varieties, the first group of ten US plant scientists traveled to China in August 1974. Sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, they were a real who’s who of the Green Revolution. The team, led by Sterling Wortman, notably included the Nobel Prize winning plant scientist Norman Borlaug. Over four weeks, they were amazed how China, with only 0.1 hectares of arable land per person, produced enough food to feed 900 million people. They observed how China had independently developed its own Green Revolution, and the US scientists were eager to learn more and obtain seeds and plant samples.

In 1975, the second US team of 10 entomologists visited communal farms and research stations across four provinces Jilin, Guangzhou, Shanxi and Jiangsu to learn more about insect pests. The team leader, Gordon Guyer from Michigan State University, described their dinner with George H.W. Bush, the US Liaison to China, who lamented that his travel was limited to within 50 miles of Beijing. The agricultural scientists were learning more about China – especially rural China – than the diplomats.

China is the largest export market for US soybeans 

Trade between the United States and China was another result of the Shanghai Communiqué. After China intervened in the Korean War in 1950, the US retaliated with a trade embargo. By the 70s, American businesses had little information on how to restart trade relations with China but the returning agricultural scientists provided valuable market information. Following the Communiqué, US trade with China went from nothing to nearly $1 billion by 1974 and 80% of US exports to China were grain. Today, China is the top market for US agricultural exports, generating $33.5 billion annually. 

Agriculture Set the Stage for the S&T Agreement

These early exchanges were extremely valuable to China. So much so that when Jimmy Carter became president, Deng Xiaoping sent the Chinese Liaison to visit the new Secretary of Agriculture Bergland with a request to bring a group of Chinese agricultural scholars to the United States. 

President Carter sent Bergland to China in November 1978 where they developed the first agreement between the two countries, a memorandum on US-China Agricultural Understanding that outlined the first two years of exchanges. I actually found the memorandum while digging through boxes of documents in the National Archives last year. 

After the memorandum was signed, Secretary Bergland quickly gained the support of the Land-Grant University system for the exchange program. The Chinese wanted to learn more about the US system of research and technology transfer to the countryside. While US scientists were interested in a range of crops and production techniques.

Agricultural exchanges were set for 1979 on pest control and collecting seeds and plant material. US agricultural scientists from USDA and eight land grant universities were the first to travel to China under the new program. Now more than 40 years later, over 2,100 US agricultural scientists have traveled to China and a near equal number of Chinese have visited US farms and laboratories. 

This exchange of expertise has helped both countries rise to global food superpowers. In a summary at the National Committee on United States-China Relations conference, by 1995 the United States had gained access to Chinese plant material for soybeans, rice, stone fruits, and citrus to develop improved plant varieties. US farmers also learned about the natural enemies used in China for harmful plant pests, reducing the reliance on pesticides. The Chinese gained information from the United States on forest conservation and grassland preservation. Both countries entered into joint research programs on human nutrition and controlling invasive species.

Still Hungry for More

However, the work is not done. New issues face agriculture, and challenge the intellectual capacity of both countries to address food safety and security, climate resilience, and environmental issues in agriculture. On January 18, 2024 US Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack met with China’s then-Minister of Agriculture Tang Renjian. They discussed the importance of restarting agricultural exchanges and working together to tackle climate and food security issues. To avoid losing the future scientific and agricultural diplomacy benefits that were made possible by the S&T Agreement, the two countries may want to build on the success of the Agricultural Understanding memorandum to launch a new Science and Technology Agreement that focuses on shared needs.