Japanese media have warned that China’s worsening water shortage could become a major constraint on the Xi Jinping government, particularly because its political, industrial, and agricultural centers are heavily concentrated in the water-scarce north. Commentator Tsukasa Shirakawa argues in his book “What Is Xi Jinping Really Afraid Of?” that Beijing, the Communist Party leadership, PLA headquarters, and major industrial clusters all face growing water-security risks. China’s decision to prioritize water infrastructure as one of its “six major networks,” alongside the power grid, computing, communications, underground pipelines, and logistics, also highlights the strategic importance of the issue.
The imbalance is particularly severe: regions south of the Yangtze River account for about 81 percent of China’s water resources but only 36.5 percent of its land, while northern and northwestern regions hold about 19 percent of the water resources across 63.5 percent of the land. The North China Plain, one of the country’s major agricultural regions, relies heavily on groundwater for irrigation, while Beijing, Tianjin, and other major cities increasingly depend on the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. The project has already transferred more than 89.2 billion cubic meters of water through its eastern and central routes, while its more challenging western route remains undeveloped.
Water scarcity also raises questions about China’s claims of food self-sufficiency. Although Beijing says its three major staple grains—rice, wheat, and corn—have a self-sufficiency rate of about 98 percent, China remains heavily dependent on imports of soybeans, barley, sorghum, and edible oils. An analysis by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations estimated that China’s overall food self-sufficiency fell from 93.6 percent in 2000 to 65.8 percent in 2020. The combination of declining water availability, groundwater depletion, and agricultural expansion in water-stressed northern regions could therefore pose growing challenges to China’s food security, economic development, and long-term governance.
Source: Liberty Times (Taiwan), August 1, 2026
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/5525236