China's role as an important world trading partner is a legacy of reformist leader Deng Xiaoping, but the hard task of fully opening the country's food markets remains, diplomats and analysts said on Monday.
As U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrived in Beijing declaring it her mission to draw China into the international fold, the sources said that on agricultural trade, China still had a long row to hoe.
Restrictions on trade in grain and other agricultural products have often been seen by trading partners, especially Washington, as political barriers to a more open Chinese market.
Quarantine issues loom large in Sino-U.S. trade, with U.S. grain officials saying, for instance, that Chinese restrictions aimed at keeping out a fungus called TCK smut deny the United States of annual wheat salesopen to foreign participation," he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"I don't know that we have any great hope that there will be changes in the short term," he said.
He and other sources in Asia said Chinese authorities were beginning to face the fact that grain imports would always be necessary and that it would be acceptable if China could supply 85 to 90 percent of its own grain needs.
Total grain output in 1996 was a record 480 million tonnes, with a state-set target of 500 million tonnes by 2000. Total grain imports for 1996 were 12 million tonnes, down 42 percent on the previous year.
The diplomat said China's cotton industry has slowly been eased into the world at large as authorities realised it is cheaper to import