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The role of China in global beef markets has changed rapidly in the past two decades. China (including Hong Kong) was not a player in global beef markets as little as 15 years ago, but has risen rapidly to become the largest beef importer over the last decade (Figure 1). For many years, China was a large beef producing and consuming country but had almost no presence in global beef markets. Starting about 2013, rising beef consumption in China began to exceed domestic beef production, leading for the first time to significant beef imports.

Although per capita beef consumption in China remains relatively low, roughly 13 pounds compared to 59 pounds in the U.S., the large population means that small increases in beef consumption represent large amounts of beef in total. As a result, China/HK quickly became the largest beef importing country, surpassing the U.S. by 2017 (Figure 2). As recently as 2022, China/HK accounted for over 35 percent of global beef imports.