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Future trend of China s agricultural trade has been a subject of considerable debate. This study revisits the subject from an optimal tariff framework perspective, the first of its kind to take into account the relative political weights and market power in predicting China s agricultural trade. The products under study include wheat, corn, rice, pork, and poultry meat. A trade model is developed based on supply-utilization tables for China. An LA/AIDS model is used to estimate consumption. And a CES nest of demands for poultry meat is used to help explain the substantial two-way trade observed in China. China s domestic supply, stocks demand, feed demand, and foreign demand or supply faced in China are estimated in a single commodity simultaneous equations framework. The results suggest that China has market power in its trade of all the commodities under study. Hypothesis test results for political bias indicate that China gave relatively higher political weights to consumers in the past, but it has changed this political objective and started to increase its supports for grain producers since 1996. For pork and poultry, China s trade policies tend to favor consumers.

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Dr. Renan Zhuang has joined the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council as director of economic analysis since 2007. He was previously with North Dakota State University as a research assistant professor. He has published peer-reviewed articles in various journals. Renan completed his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University in May 2005.

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