Washington real instigator of food crisis: China Daily editorial

Warning of worsening hunger around the world on Monday, the US aid chief Samantha Power criticized China for putting trade restrictions on fertilizers and "hoarding" grain.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, she said that if China released fertilizer or grain to the global market or the World Food Programme, it would significantly relieve the pressure on food and fertilizer prices, and powerfully demonstrate the country is "a friend to the world's least developed economies". Such criticism and accusations are irresponsible and groundless.

Just as Liu Pengyu, the spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said, China is closely cooperating with the World Food Programme to address the global food crisis, including setting up a global humanitarian response depot and hub in China and providing assistance through its development projects in more than 140 countries and regions.

It is the United States that has done nothing to reduce its use of grain for energy, which has helped hike up food prices in the world market. It is the US that has exploited the conflict in Ukraine to inflate grain prices in the world market to seek profit.

The US is one of the world's major grain exporters, the higher grain prices are in the world market, the more money the US will make. When millions of people in Africa are going hungry and the world is facing an increasingly serious food crisis, the US can do a lot to alleviate the crisis. But it has done nothing except point an accusing finger at others.

The US is trying to blame Russia and China for the food crisis, but it is the sanctions the US and its allies have inflicted on Russia that have contributed considerably to the food crisis in Africa. Russia has long been a major exporter of fertilizers and grains, but the US-orchestrated conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the sanctions it has imposed on Russia have seriously affected exports of fertilizer and grain from Russia, which has contributed to the worsening of the global food crisis.

While the US is manipulating the global grain trade for its own benefit, China is doing what it can to pull together global resources in order to respond to the food crisis.

On behalf of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative, which comprises more than 60 countries, China's Ambassador to the United Nations Zhang Jun put forward proposals for addressing the global food crisis at a specially convened UN conference on coordinating policy responses to the global food crisis on Monday.

The proposals call for emergency aid to countries seriously affected by the food crisis, and developed countries to strengthen cooperation in the development of agricultural technology to increase food production. The proposals also urge that the supply chains be kept smooth to ensure the supply of grains, fuel and fertilizers.

The world is watching. Which country is a responsible one, China or the US?