China is looking to boost its domestic production of soybeans, potentially becoming less reliant on U.S. farmers amid a tit-for-tat trade war between the world's largest economies.

 

China included lifting soybean production in a five-year plan issued in 2016, but in early April it announced that soybean farmers in China's northeastern provinces would be getting higher subsidies than its corn producers this year. This notably came amid a fierce war of words between Beijing and Washington and just a day before China said it was going to slap a 25 percent levy on U.S. imports which included soybeans.

 

China is the biggest buyer of soybeans, importing 95.5 million tons in 2017— mainly from Brazil and the U.S. This was about seven times that of the country's own soybean output.

 

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