Recently, placards with slogans calling for curbing food wastage have been popping up on tables in restaurants across the country, where waiters are now gently notifying diners when they've ordered more than enough food. Public service announcements featuring Chinese celebrities have also appealed to Chinese citizens to reduce food waste, as part of a waste reduction movement that is sweeping the nation. 

The movement is part of a long-term campaign, initiated in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, and gets new energy from the president's recent emphasis on preventing food wastage. In August, Xi highlighted the importance of food security awareness, even in times of plentiful harvests. His message centered on taking the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on food security as a call for vigilance. 

The anti-waste campaign is now a much-talked about topic among Chinese. Most people see it as a campaign to save food and reduce food waste. But the significance of the campaign goes far beyond. 

This campaign in fact reveals how Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era draws upon the fine Chinese tradition of frugality. The thought covers not only issues of state governance, such as politics, the economy, society, culture, the military and diplomacy, but also social issues such as housing and food. It is an ideological system based on China's national conditions that are inseparable from the traditional Chinese cultures that have existed for thousands of years. 

The Chinese nation has always cherished the virtues of diligence and thrift. Xi himself grew up amid traditional Chinese culture and experienced years of food shortage. Thus he has a deep understanding of the importance of saving food. By launching the anti-food waste campaign, he is practicing and advocating this tradition in new forms, embodied by campaigns such as Clear Your Plates and Half-Portioned Dishes. 

These slogans, as well as the campaigns, shed light on the fact that the Chinese are now materially rich. Most of those who were born before the 1980s have the experience of starvation. In those days, to have enough food was not easy, and thus the problem of food waste did not exist. Today, the picture is totally different. Many Chinese are rich and many of them are developing expensive tastes. The problem of wasting food follows. For example, people tend to provide a lot of food to show their hospitality to guests. If all the dishes on the table are consumed by the end of a meal, it traditionally indicates insufficient hospitality. Rarely do people bring leftovers back home from restaurants. Food waste is occurring on a massive scale every day across the country, and has reached a point where something must be done to prevent it. 

The campaign is also setting up a dieting code of conduct for a moderately wealthy society. This year will see China's transition into a moderately prosperous society, or xiaokang society, in all respects. One important criterion for such a society is "enough food for the population." Societies at every stage of development have certain rules of social conduct. How should the Chinese conduct themselves after reaching the xiaokang stage of development? Should they waste food or be careful about food? Saving food and refraining from wasting food should become a fashion in a xiaokang society. 

The campaign also draws attention to the widening gap between China's grain output and its annual population growth. As the world's most populous country, China has only 0.09 hectare of arable land per capita, shy of 40 percent of the global average. Feeding 1.4 billion people with such limited arable land seems like an almost miraculous achievement, but in reality the achievement is the result of extraordinary efforts in the face of extraordinary hardships. 

While China is now capable of providing enough food for its population, monitoring food security remains vital. China depends on imports for some commodities such as soybean and corn, and the import of these commodities has been affected this year by the coronavirus pandemic. Reduced availability of these key commodities draws attention to the issue of food security, and highlights the importance of the nation-wide campaign to ensure food security. 

(Print Edition Title: Why Reducing Food Waste Matters)   

Copyedited by Garth Wilson 

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