"what influences the fate of a great country is ultimately a small rice bowl."

text/ ba jiuling (wechat public account: wu xiaobo channel)

september ushered in a hot new school season. in the news about the new students' registration, xiaoba discovered an interesting phenomenon.

this year, a new fashion item suddenly appeared among the new students. it has a yellowish-brown background and bright red words. if you don’t know, you might think it’s another classic work of an international brand that pays tribute to garbage bags.

looking closely, it turned out to be a urea bag.

image source: xiaohongshu@xi'an polytechnic university communication wall

netizens found that although the urea bag is a bit rustic as the luggage bag for freshmen to report, it can be said to be a real practical artifact:

1.it is strong and waterproof, and its durability seems to exceed that of various exquisite luggage.

2.large capacity, can hold all kinds of quilts.

3.super cost-effective, it costs only one percent of the price of luggage, but can withstand 1000% of the wear and tear of luggage.

some netizens discovered the characteristics of urea bags and found various new uses for them.

for example, outdoor enthusiasts have transformed urea bags into durable outdoor mountaineering bags; fashion enthusiasts have modified urea bags into fashionable three-piece sets of urea clothes, urea bags, and urea hats that look very rustic.

but before urea bags became a fashionable "fashion item", they hid a secret past of competition among major powers.

the difficulty of making urea is as high as that of the sky.

going back 50 years, to the late 1970s, chinese villages actually had the experience of turning urea bags into "clothes".

at that time, china was short of supplies and many people only had a small number of cloth coupons a year, making life even more difficult for farmers. as a result, urea bags became a magic weapon for "turning waste into treasure" at the time. after the urea was used up, the urea bag could be dyed and turned into a pair of trousers.

however, the printing and dyeing technology at the time was not up to standard. after repeated washing, the words on the urea bags would be exposed - "25kg" and "made in japan".

in order to develop agriculture, china imported a large amount of urea from japan as fertilizer, and the urea bags were naturally from japan.

the use of urea bags on the back of clothes was a reflection of the "competition for land and grain" in new china at that time.

the reason for the shortage of clothes is that cotton, as a source of cloth, is one of the economic crops with the lowest yield per acre. land is limited, and compared with growing grain to fill stomachs and growing cotton to have clothes to wear, one can only choose the lesser of two evils.

it was not until the 1980s, after the rise of china's petroleum industry, that the chemical fiber technology using petroleum as raw materials solved the clothing problem for the chinese people.

therefore, the use of urea bags to make clothes was actually a transitional measure before the rise of the oil industry; as for the experience of having to import urea from japan back then, it also hides the dilemma of china's agricultural development.

workers unload imported urea from a large ocean-going vessel

at that time, china could not produce clothes or fertilizers. from today's perspective, the difficulty of making fertilizers should be much lower than that of making clothes.

but in fact, if you want to produce fertilizers at low cost and in large quantities, the technical capabilities behind it even need to reach the level of the aviation industry.

for example, the air separation equipment for manufacturing synthetic urea needs to have thin-walled heat exchangers, containers, high-pressure liquid oxygen pumps, etc. that can withstand ultra-low temperatures of -189°c. if these equipment can be manufactured, it is equivalent to having the ability to manufacture rocket fuel tanks.

for example, the gasification furnace for manufacturing urea requires that the container be able to withstand a high temperature of 1300°c, which is equivalent to the requirement of a low-end aviation rocket engine; a synthesis tower that is more than ten stories high and can withstand 150 atmospheres of pressure is equivalent to the pressure that a deep-sea submarine diving to a depth of 1,500 meters can withstand.

due to the extremely high technical difficulty, when the people's republic of china was founded, the annual output of fertilizers in the whole of china was only 6,000 tons.

during the same period, india's annual output was more than three times that of china, japan's was more than ten times that of china, and the united states' was more than 70 times that of china. the first modern fertilizer plant built by the soviet union in china, the jilin fertilizer plant, had an annual output of 50,000 tons of synthetic ammonia and 90,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, which was almost equal to the national output at that time.

fertilizers are extremely important for the development of agriculture. the world's population has grown from less than 2 billion 100 years ago to 8 billion today. a big reason for this is that germany invented the artificial nitrogen fixation method to produce nitrogen fertilizer, which increased the per-acre yield of crops and enabled agriculture to feed such a large population today.

therefore, in the 1970s, the country worked hard to pay out us$4.3 billion in foreign exchange and introduced 13 large-scale fertilizer plants with an annual production capacity of 300,000 to 500,000 tons, which barely solved the agricultural need for fertilizers.

it was not until the late 1990s that china was able to replace domestic fertilizers. around 2010, china achieved the localization of a full set of parts for modern fertilizer plants.

last year, the annual production capacity of china's fertilizer industry was nearly 60 million tons, and china has become the world's largest urea producer and exporter, using 9% of the world's arable land and 33% of fertilizers to feed 20% of the world's population.

urea is a problem for major countries

the history of urea development not only hides the history of china's rise, but also the secret competition among major powers.

at the end of last year, south korea's experience of being "choked" by urea was the best footnote to this kind of competition.

at the end of november 2023, china's general administration of customs announced the suspension of the customs clearance process for korean companies to export automotive urea solutions, causing panic concerns about a "urea shortage" in south korea.

it sounds strange, but korea is really short of urea.there are two types of urea: agricultural urea, which is used as one of the raw materials for nitrogen fertilizer; and industrial urea.

what south korea lacks is exactly the latter.

in south korea, all diesel engine vehicles are equipped with emission control systems, that is, the exhaust gas of the diesel engine needs to be treated with treatment fluid before the vehicle can be on the road. this treatment fluid is actually automotive urea solution, which is made of industrial urea.

south korea's urea mainly relies on imports, two-thirds of which comes from china. the urea shortage means that south korea's diesel vehicles will find it difficult to work normally.

coincidentally, south korea is a paradise for diesel vehicles. among the 26 million registered motor vehicles, they are divided into gasoline vehicles, diesel vehicles, and new energy vehicles, with diesel vehicles accounting for nearly half, which happen to include trucks, buses, and industrial machinery.

this means,if diesel vehicles cannot work, south korea's transportation logistics, public transportation, and engineering construction will be paralyzed.

this kind of "urea shortage" also occurred in south korea in 2021. the cause of the urea shortage was also that china restricted urea exports at that time.

so when china restricted urea exports again this time, south korea immediately made an emergency response.

in december last year, the south korean government held an industrial supply chain strategy meeting and proposed an industrial supply chain strategy to reduce dependence on imports of key supplies, aiming to reduce the import dependence of some supply chain items on specific countries from 70% to below 50% by 2030.

among these supply chain items is urea, which is heavily dependent on china.

among the major countries, in addition to south korea, which has been "choked" by urea in industry, india has also experienced being "choked" by urea in agriculture.

in july 2023, india faced an unprecedented tomato crisis.

in just one month, the price of tomatoes in the indian market soared by 700%, from 27 rupees per kilogram to 178 rupees, or about 16 yuan.

during the same period, the price of gasoline in india's capital new delhi was only 96 rupees per liter, equivalent to about 8.4 yuan per kilogram.

as one of the three main dishes on the indian table, tomatoes are more expensive than gasoline. for the indian people, whose average monthly salary is only more than 3,000 yuan, this is an unbearable pain.

the reason was that india at that time suffered from drought and flooding, which led to a reduction in tomato production.

but behind the natural disaster is india's weak agriculture - india uses one-fourth more arable land than china, but grows half of china's grain output. the reason lies in fertilizers.

india's chemical industry is not strong, resulting in insufficient supply of fertilizers, which indirectly affects agricultural output.

image source: wechat official account zhengjieju

india's per-acre fertilizer usage not only fails to reach the global average, but is even less than half of china's.

a survey conducted by the national soil health card program, initiated by the ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare of india, once showed that most of india’s soils lack organic carbon and a large number of nutrients, and the situation is continuing to deteriorate.

so seemingly ordinary urea can transcend regions and time and affect the fate of industries and people in so many countries.

what does china need to worry about when it has no shortage of urea?

but does the fact that china has no shortage of urea mean that it can rest easy?

from the actual situation, this is not the case.

the main categories of fertilizers are nitrogen fertilizers, phosphate fertilizers, potash fertilizers, as well as some micro-fertilizers (trace element fertilizers) and compound fertilizers. china has no shortage of nitrogen and phosphorus raw materials for nitrogen fertilizers and phosphate fertilizers, but it is extremely short of "potassium".

last year, china's potash shortage was as high as 68%, because china's recoverable potash reserves are too low. according to data from the u.s. geological survey, china's recoverable potash reserves will only account for 5% of the world's total in 2023, lower than canada, belarus, russia and the united states.

due to the low self-sufficiency rate of potassium salt, china needs to import 70% of its potassium salt every year. it has been and will continue to be the world's largest potassium salt consumer for more than 20 years.

potassium is also a highly monopolized resource. the potash fertilizer produced by canada, the united states, russia and belarus accounts for 67% of the global production.

chaerhan salt lake, golmud city, haixi prefecture, qinghai province

during the ongoing russia-ukraine conflict, western countries stepped up sanctions on russia and belarus, causing the price of potassium chloride to soar, reaching an all-time high of 5,100 yuan per ton. it just so happens that more than half of china's imported potash fertilizers come from russia and belarus, which undoubtedly puts china at the mercy of others.

the united states has a lot to say about how serious the harm is from being controlled by humans when it comes to fertilizers.

as a major agricultural country, due to the lack of fertilizers, the lifeline of american agriculture is, to some extent, in the hands of russia.

russia is the world's second largest fertilizer producer after china due to its rich mineral and energy resources.

russia is one of the countries with the largest natural gas reserves. at the same time, russia also has rich reserves of phosphate rock and potash salt. the synthesis of nitrogen fertilizer in chemical fertilizers requires natural gas, and phosphate fertilizer and potash fertilizer also require reserves of phosphate rock and potash salt.

therefore, with its resource advantages, russia has become the world's largest exporter of nitrogen fertilizer, the world's second largest exporter of potash fertilizer, and the world's third largest exporter of phosphate fertilizer.

russia is also the main fertilizer supplier to the united states. changes in fertilizer exports from russia can directly affect american farmers' annual planting plans.

after the outbreak of the russia-ukraine conflict in 2022, the world's three largest international shipping companies announced the suspension of all cargo bookings to and from russian ports, resulting in a rapid drop in russia's fertilizer supply in a short period of time and a surge in global fertilizer prices.

the united states cannot afford to import expensive fertilizers, and its own fertilizer factories cannot meet their production capacity due to the high price of natural gas, the raw material for fertilizers. as a result, american farmers can only grow crops that require less fertilizer.

the planting intention report released by the u.s. department of agriculture shows that after the russia-ukraine conflict, american farmers' intention to plant corn in 2022 has declined, while their intention to plant soybeans has broken a record, simply because the fertilizer required to grow soybeans is only a quarter of that of corn.

it is not a pleasant feeling to have your lifeline controlled by another country. after the russia-ukraine conflict, the u.s. secretary of agriculture threatened to sanction russian fertilizers. however, this was unanimously opposed by many agriculture-dependent countries including argentina, bolivia, chile, paraguay, and uruguay, and the opposition from american farmers was endless.

to use the words of the russian media to mock, "in order to strike russia, the united states is ready to starve the whole world to death."

referring to the case of the united states, although china seems to have solved the problem of its weak fertilizer industry through more than 50 years of development, geopolitical frictions continue around the world to this day, and the wave of de-globalization has not changed. china must be even more prepared for the "bottleneck" problem.

author of this article | mei haoyu | responsibilityeditor | xu tao

editor-in-chief | he mengfei | image source |VCG