Scott Yi-Chun Lin

As the first Eastern country to undergo modernization, Japan was also the first to possess colonies. The Japanese Empire’s development of its Asian colonies has served as the genesis of Oriental development studies. After acquiring Taiwan in the late 19th century, Japan drew on the experiences of Western countries as it sought to develop its new colony. At the same time, poor sanitation in the initial stages of the island’s development resulted in significant losses for the Japanese personnel. The Japanese government therefore altered its development strategy to prioritize public health over large-scale infrastructure development, and the public health system of Gotō Shinpei was implemented accordingly. Documented in the book Taiwan Colonial Policy, these measures are unique to Oriental development studies and highlight the focus on public health infrastructure during the period. From the perspective of the eco-state, the above approach improved Taiwan’s ecological environment and laid the groundwork for its future growth. This study explores the roots of Oriental development studies in the context of Japan’s colonization of Taiwan, revealing a distinctive emphasis on public health systems that has been crucial in Taiwan’s modernization.

Food regime theory asserts that the Global North has controlled food production chains since the 1800s, establishing a corporate food regime in the late 1980s. Through liberalization, Northern food corporations became powerful, leading the contemporary food regime and even replacing states. However, Global South corporations in the Asia-Pacific have grown to become important players in corporate food regimes. Through a literature review, content analysis, and interviews, this study leverages Third Regionalism as the theoretical approach to supplement the food regime theory, and explains how Third Regionalism featured free trade agreements established by Asia-Pacific countries, and how it supported the rapid rise of Southern food corporations. Regionalism helped Asia-Pacific Southern corporations become important figures in the contemporary corporate food regime, reinforcing the Global South’s food security and the livelihood sovereignty aspect of food sovereignty. The stances of Global South food sovereignty groups toward genetically modified crops are shifting and worthy of continued consideration.

Food regime theory identifies three distinct food regimes on a world scale: the British (1870–1930s), American (1945–1970s), and corporate food regimes (since the 1980s). In the first two regimes, political economic orders were dominated by two separate nation states, whereas the current third regime is dominated by a few mega-corporations. Consequently, traditional super nation states are finding it challenging to use food trade measures to ensure favourable world orders. However, China’s state-owned agribusiness enterprises are quickly joining hands with the corporate food regime. This study aims to answer the following questions: Where is the state in the contemporary corporate food regime? How are these rising Chinese state-owned agribusiness enterprises changing the current food regime context? Applying the food regime theory, this paper aims to analyse the expansion of China’s influence in the global soybean commodity chain, which is driven by four forces from the corporate food regime: liberalisation, technologicalisation, securitisation, and accumulation. These forces lead the Chinese state apparatus to address China’s domestic food needs and then to establish agricultural free trade projects, biotechnology projects, soybean commodity-chain nationalisation projects, and transnational land-grabbing investments. Furthermore, such a dynamic Chinese food security context is gradually moving towards a “state-owned enterprise corporate food regime.”

Third regionalism explains the liberalization of trade centered around the Asia-Pacific region in the 21st century. Under regionalism, domestic agricultural markets that formerly enjoyed national food-security policies have loosened. This caused traditional domestic farmers’ organizations to become more regionally interconnected, forming a food sovereignty movement under the auspices of La Via Campesina. Localized food-production chains are promoted to mitigate the impact of regionalism on the Asia-Pacific agricultural sector. The Taiwan Rural Front (TRF) joined La Via Campesina and the food sovereignty movement in the 2010s. During the process of adopting regionalism, Taiwanese agricultural trade and technologies were protected by public agencies and state-owned enterprises. This context differs from that of Southeast Asia, where the food sovereignty movement has thrived. Therefore, the following question is raised: Why was it possible for the food sovereignty movement to originate in Taiwan? This paper describes the developmental characteristics of Taiwan’s food-security governance mechanism as a state-guided corporate food regime amid third regionalism. Further, the TRF does not advocate for localized food-production chains. Due to the formation of a state-guided corporate food regime, the food sovereignty movement has become connected with farmland protection movements that set the Taiwanese sovereignty movement apart.

A new wave of transnational farmland acquisition recently emerged, giving rise to two questions: What are the approaches in this wave of farmland acquisition and have relevant regulations been created for governance? Theories of international political economy are used to analyze the acquisition race, with two findings. First, grain-importing countries in Asia and the Persian Gulf region tend to use economic nationalism to conduct acquisition. Developed countries in the West tend towards liberalism, with market interests being the driving force behind acquisition, and the civil society of host countries in the South generally embrace both Marxism and liberalism, hoping to evaluate the acquisition process from perspectives of human rights and responsible farmland investment. Second, the existing governance regulations tend to favor investor countries’ interests, leaving host countries’ food security insufficiently protected.

Since the financial crisis of 2008–9, how a state can play a more active role in correcting market failure has become a central topic in political economy. Thus, academia is again discussing state capitalism seriously. Contemporary state capitalism assumes state intervention in markets is becoming more multifaceted. Consequently, traditional state-owned enterprises exist alongside new government-favored actors, such as privately owned national champions and sovereign wealth funds, intervening in markets. This coalition helps the state achieve its security, political, economic, social, and nationalistic goals more efficiently. Its growing power in markets also heralds the return of state capitalism. This paper uses state capitalism theories to re-interpret China's food security governance. The three preliminary findings are as follows. First, China's food security governance is typically operated under state capitalism, which has successfully managed China's foodavailability, though not without some corruption, but has weakened its foodaccessibility. Second, using state capitalism to manage China's foodsafetyhas been impeded, so the effects remain to be seen. Third, state capitalism has successfully improved thestabilityof the food supply and demand in China, but its agricultural business branching-out strategy has worried the international community and should be observed further.

During the twenty-first century’s wave of transnational farmland investment, Asian countries contributed to about half of the investment. I therefore address the following major questions: What is the food security situation across Asian countries? What are the factors that drive Asian countries to join the transnational farmland investment movement? I argue that the following four factors give rise to the security problems in the food supply chain of Asian countries: (1) the developmental state model that leads Asian countries to sacrifice agriculture in their home countries; (2) the increases in food demand resulting from accelerated urbanization; (3) an unstable food supply chain causing Asian countries to seek reliable bases of food supply; and (4) food safety concerns that drive Asia to look for better quality farmlands. Today, as transnational farmland investment has become one of the models to maintain Asian countries’ food security, this Asian model is also challenging contemporary global food security governance dominated by Western countries. The changes that it will effect over the course of this arduous process will also inform and shape future research within academia.