A Strategy to Respond to the New Sino-Russia Land Grain Corridor (NLGC)

March 16, 2026 | By Ulysses

Executive Summary

China and Russia formalized the New Sino-Russia Land Grain Corridor (NLGC) in 2022, a strategic bilateral initiative that synergistically dominates food supply chains across Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. Anchored by a landmark 12-year, $25.7 billion grain supply contract signed in October 2023, the NLGC exploits China's structural food insecurity and Russia's need to circumvent Western sanctions. Left unchecked, the corridor will deepen regional dependence on Sino-Russian grain flows—undermining U.S. influence, threatening food security among key partners, and displacing American agricultural exporters. This paper recommends that the Trump Administration elevate global food security as a central pillar of Indo-Pacific strategy, strengthen agricultural trade and capacity-building partnerships across Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands, and use grain diplomacy as a lever in ongoing negotiations with Russia.

Introduction

The People's Republic of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) dates to 2013, when President Xi Jinping sought to enhance regional trade, supply chain resilience, and connectivity based on the old Silk Road. Beijing's investments in regional highways, railways, and ports have helped propel China to dominance across key economic sectors, including food security, critical minerals, digital infrastructure via Huawei, and other essential manufacturing and supply chains. To date, over 150 countries have joined or expressed interest in joining the BRI. However, many of these nations have found themselves ensnared in China's notorious debt-trap diplomacy: BRI partners have ended up indebted to Chinese banks for escalating infrastructure costs, forcing concessions over critical mineral mines and other strategic assets. China has grown to dominate trade routes in Central Asia, South Asia, the Indo-Pacific, the Pacific Island Countries (PICS), Eurasia's Middle Corridor, and Africa's Swahili Coast.

Seeking to secure its own food supply chains and extend regional economic control, China has now partnered with Russia in the New Sino-Russia Land Grain Corridor (NLGC), officially launched in 2022. The NLGC has significant implications for the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies on food security and food assistance. The Trump Administration has an opportunity to counter the NLGC's impact across Asia by enhancing trade and regional food security in ways that benefit the United States and its trading partners.

China's Structural Food Insecurity

The People's Republic of China is food insecure and dependent on wheat, soy, corn, and other grain imports from Ukraine, Brazil, Africa, the Central Asian nations, and increasingly the Russian Federation. China leads the world in grain consumption but faces shrinking arable land, poor irrigation systems, and acute water stress. China has 20 percent of the world's population but only 6 percent of its available fresh water. Flooding and pollution further reduce the usable water supply. Cattle production is constrained by limited arable land, and meat supplies are heavily imported, including significant shares of pork and beef from the United States. Food security, and the strategic imperative of diversifying away from American imports, was a stated priority in the CCP's 14th Five-Year Plan. China currently imports 80 percent of its soybeans and corn for animal feed, as well as wheat, corn, and barley for human consumption, largely from the United States, Australia, and Canada.

China's farming population is also rapidly aging, and inherited farm plots are subdivided across generations, reducing the scale needed for profitable production. Rural youth have little interest in farming and are increasingly migrating to urban areas for better job prospects and a middle-class lifestyle actively promoted by the CCP.

Russia's Convergent Interests

The Russian Federation has been under sustained pressure from U.S. and E.U. sanctions following the war in Ukraine. Russia possesses vast arable land in Siberia and its eastern provinces and is a top global wheat producer, but has been seeking new export markets to circumvent the economic impact of wartime sanctions. Russia has historically lacked the agricultural technology, storage capacity, and logistics infrastructure needed to move large grain tonnages. Some agricultural supplies, fertilizers, and technologies have also been difficult to obtain under wartime sanctions, further straining Russia's economy.

Cornered by sanctions and war, Russia has looked increasingly eastward for relief. China, meanwhile, seeks to guarantee its own food supply chains and to control the region economically. These converging interests produced the NLGC. Russia provides land access; China has brought labor, technology, funding, and enormous demand. Under a landmark grain supply contract signed in October 2023 at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, Russia's EPT grain export company agreed to supply 70 million tons of grain, legumes, and oilseeds to China Chengtong over 12 years—a deal worth 2.5 trillion rubles ($25.7 billion). Hundreds of Chinese firms have leased thousands of hectares in Russia's eastern provinces to grow soybean, corn, wheat, and other grains. China is also building Sino-Russia rail corridors such as the Amur Bridge and the Primorye corridors, and is investing in grain silos, warehouses, and grain processing facilities, while exporting smart-farming drones and other AI-enabled agricultural technology to Russia. As a result of the NLGC, regional grain trade is increasingly shifting from the U.S. dollar to the yuan and ruble.

NLGC Impact on Central Asia and Indo-Pacific Allies and Partners

Central Asia

The five Central Asian nations are among the heaviest debtors in China's debt-trap diplomacy framework. Tajikistan, for example, owes 77 percent of its external debt to China and recently had to sell gold mines to Beijing to offset Chinese bank loans. China has invested heavily in the Five Nations Railway Corridor, which will significantly enhance supply chains along the NLGC and open a route to Iran. The Central Asian nations also face heavy Russian surveillance and political influence. Many Central Asians speak fluent Russian as a second language and maintain cultural ties with Russia through media consumption, travel, and labor migration.

Given the dynamics of the neighborhood and the need to balance great powers, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian partners are joining logistics and supply chain networks along the Grain Belt and Road. China has acquired significant farmland in the fertile Kazakh steppe, which is well-suited for both crops and cattle. Kazakhstan has been active in the NLGC, having recently exported over two million tons of grain to China in 2024, and is working on deals to upgrade rail connections with Beijing, positioning itself as a regional grain export hub. Kazakhstan is also seeking to export grain to markets throughout Asia, including Malaysia, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic are the two Central Asian nations most vulnerable to food shocks, and both are most heavily caught in China's debt trap. Wheat and rice are staples in the region's traditional cuisines, and local supplies are subject to periodic food pricing shocks. Turkmenistan also faces food insecurity, with approximately 12 percent of the population suffering food insecurity, including malnutrition and anemia. Given Turkmenistan's authoritarian governance, extreme remoteness, and unwillingness to publish statistics, exact rates are difficult to measure.

The C5+1 forum—the United States' primary diplomatic platform with the five Central Asian republics—is the most important existing vehicle for regional cooperation in this sphere. The U.S. should use it to explore food security cooperation and to facilitate trade between the Central Asian nations and American agricultural suppliers. The U.S. should also ensure the continuity of food aid for Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic, so that China and Russia no longer hold a regional monopoly via the NLGC. In parallel, the United States should foster science, technology, and agricultural trade opportunities to nudge Kazakhstan into closer agricultural partnership.

The Himalayan States

The Himalayan states of India, Bhutan, and Nepal are particularly vulnerable to food shocks due to natural disasters such as flash flooding and earthquakes. High mountain ranges frequently cut off supplies to remote villages. The airports in Thimphu and Kathmandu are unable to support high air traffic volumes or large aircraft in emergencies. In the lead-up to the 2015 Nepal earthquake, USAID and the Department of State collaborated with the Nepali government to pre-position food aid in warehouses—a model that could be replicated in Thimphu, and would be welcomed by Bhutanese leadership, now that USAID's Humanitarian Assistance programs have been absorbed under the Department of State.

Nepali children face nutritional challenges including stunting, and USAID's maternal and child health projects have traditionally addressed the nutritional vulnerabilities of pregnant mothers and newborns. Bhutan has struggled with ongoing food security issues. In 2023, USAID successfully supplied freeze-drying and other food preservation equipment to support food cooperatives in Bhutan, an effort well received by the Royal Family and its partner, the Bhutan Foundation.

Bhutan has excess supply of some food stocks but faces constraints on exports: Bhutan is not yet a WTO member and remains in accession negotiations, having only formally approved the process in April 2023 after graduating from Least Developed Country (LDC) status in December 2023. As a result, its food exports do not yet meet the international trade standards required for wider regional market access, contributing to significant food waste. Helping Bhutan to achieve food export standards and build food preservation capabilities would bolster the Bhutanese economy, expand employment, and increase food security. These efforts would give both Nepal and Bhutan viable alternatives to dependence on the PRC and the NLGC, and can be carried out under the Department of State's Foreign Assistance Bureau.

China continues to make political inroads into Bhutan by colonizing small villages with Chinese citizens. In Nepal, China uses debt-trap diplomacy through the rebuilding of religious, historical, and critical infrastructure post-earthquake via China Aid—providing leverage to pressure the Nepalese government on a range of issues, including Nepal's role in hosting Tibetan refugees, a key international religious freedom concern that the Trump Administration has championed. Local farmers in Nepal and Bhutan would be particularly vulnerable if China chose to flood the Himalayan region with NLGC food supplies, which would destabilize both economies. The United States should continue to help Himalayan nations prepare for natural disaster shocks by shoring up food supplies—generating goodwill in the process—and should continue outreach and food assistance to Bhutan. A sustained U.S. presence in the region is a stabilizing force as both Bhutan and Nepal navigate great-power pressures from China and India.

India

India is a regional leader in South and Central Asia and a key U.S. partner. Thanks to the legacy work of OFDA and USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), India has become an Indo-Pacific leader in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). For example, India led the 2023 G20 Working Group on DRR and has deployed DRR teams to earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters across the region and beyond. India can help support DRR and emergency food aid for its South Asian neighbors, and the United States should continue to bolster its capacity as a Quad partner.

India is one of the United States' largest trading partners, with $129.2 billion in bilateral trade, including $1.12 billion in American almonds, $53 million in American dairy products, $73 million in pulses, and $44 million in animal feed. As a partner, the United States should carefully shore up India's domestic food security needs and work with India to improve water and sanitation infrastructure. In FY 2023, the U.S. provided $154.5 million in economic assistance to India, including food aid and water and sanitation support. The U.S. should maintain or increase this assistance to build India's DRR capacity and promote its agricultural knowledge transfer capacity as a regional leader and reliable Quad partner. These efforts can continue under the Department of State's Foreign Assistance Bureau.

Other South Asian Nations: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives

Bangladesh faces chronic food insecurity despite its recent leap to middle-income status, and has one of the most densely populated urban centers in the world in Dhaka. Child wasting, stunting, and acute malnourishment rates are high. Contributing factors include flooding, cyclones, saltwater intrusion, and seasonal hunger between planting cycles. The Rohingya crisis compounds this with a major humanitarian food security challenge, as millions continue to live in camps. With the 2025 reduction of U.S. food aid for the Rohingya population by half, the risk of further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and tensions between Myanmar and Bangladesh has increased. The PRC sought to exploit such tensions in the past by offering to negotiate Rohingya repatriation. In 2024, China exported rice stocks to Bangladesh (the precise figure reported as $3.72 million, though this figure has not been independently verified in open trade databases). Most of Bangladesh's rice supplies come from Southeast Asia, and it is important that Bangladesh not become dependent on PRC NLGC exports. Support for the Rohingya should continue under the Department of State's F Bureau.

Following Sri Lanka's recent revolution, economic crisis, and the end of the Rajapaksa era, Sri Lanka has experienced serious food insecurity, with over 17 percent of the population food insecure and one third of children malnourished. Sri Lanka is facing severe fertilizer shortages and declining rice and maize production. Frequent natural disasters such as flooding and monsoons further impact food supplies. Vulnerable populations—including tea workers, female-headed households, and children—are at greatest risk.

During the Rajapaksa era, China was a key ally of the Sri Lankan government and secured a 99-year lease on the port of Colombo thanks to its BRI and debt-trap strategy. Following the revolution, China lost some footing in Sri Lanka but has used food security as a tool to regain influence. In 2022, through the NLGC, China donated 2,000 metric tons of rice to Sri Lanka valued at approximately $2.5 million. This was followed in 2024 by disaster relief food supplies. China also donated food packages to 10,000 Sri Lankan children via the Chinese NGO China Foundation for Rural Development.

The Maldives, despite its profile as a resort destination, is highly food insecure and heavily dependent on agricultural imports due to limited arable land. Rising sea levels and the degradation of coral reefs also threaten seafood production. In 2024, China signed a food aid agreement with the Maldives supporting agricultural production for 200,000 people, covering rice, sugar, and flour.

Pakistan

Gwadar, Pakistan, is one of the largest deep-water ports in the Indo-Pacific and has, in effect, been captured by China through BRI. Pakistan has also received economic bailouts from China as part of that partnership. Beijing has been heavily involved in Gwadar's infrastructure development, with access roads tracing back to China's Xinjiang province—where the United States has sanctioned Beijing for its ongoing repression of the Uyghur Muslim community, an international religious freedom priority championed by the first Trump Administration.

The port of Gwadar provides China with ready access to the Indian Ocean, and NLGC food supplies can also exit via this route. China has little direct trade with India—given India's growing strategic partnership with the United States and ongoing political and border tensions with China—and has cultivated Pakistan as a regional counterweight. For the sake of regional stability, the United States should continue to balance its engagement with both Pakistan and India. Sustaining humanitarian assistance and trade promotion with India is one means of doing so.

Southeast Asia and ASEAN

China has utilized its "String of Pearls" port network for NLGC grain exports from eastern ports—Dalian, Tianjin, and Qingdao—to ASEAN nations and the Pacific Islands. The result is the flooding of local markets with NLGC grain, which undercuts local farmers, impoverishes them, and coerces nations to rely on PRC grain imports through pre-existing infrastructure and debt arrangements. Several ASEAN nations, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, are highly vulnerable to local price shifts in grains and oilseeds.

Through the NLGC, China is exporting wheat to ASEAN nations, while ASEAN nations trade rice (via Vietnam and Thailand), corn, soybeans, and cassava from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Indonesia with China and Russia. NLGC initiatives in the region also include dry ports, cold chains, and grain terminals—creating conditions for regional dependency on these trade routes, land acquisition vulnerabilities, and debt-trap arrangements.

The $500 billion U.S.-ASEAN trade relationship is an important and economically beneficial one for American citizens that promotes a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. Through this relationship, 625,000 American jobs have been created. ASEAN nations are increasingly seeking trade deals with the United States, and there is ample opportunity to expand partnerships in agricultural technologies and supplies with American businesses. ASEAN states are purchasing growing quantities of U.S. pork and beef exports; currently ASEAN imports $2.9 billion in beef, $1.2 billion in pork, and $1.2 billion in poultry annually. The U.S. should consider increasing its pork and beef exports to ASEAN nations. In addition, shoring up Indonesia's and the Philippines' capacity to stockpile food supplies for frequent natural disasters is essential, given the remote geography of both archipelagos. The United States can also promote capacity-building for disaster preparedness with these partners.

Pacific Island Countries (PICS)

The Pacific Island Countries are remote and extremely food insecure, heavily dependent on imports. Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands, for example, import 60 to 90 percent of their grains and food. Rising sea levels, cyclones, and floods damage local food production, and coastal farming areas face salinization. One consequence of heavy food import dependence in the region is a high intake of shelf-stable, ultra-processed foods, which have contributed to elevated rates of obesity, diabetes, and nutritional deficiencies. Young islanders are also migrating to cities for employment, leaving an aging and increasingly irreplaceable farming population.

China exports a moderate tonnage of grains, processed foods, and frozen seafood to the Pacific Island states through the NLGC. By contrast, the United States exports $1.25 billion in food annually to the Pacific Island nations, including agriculture and fisheries. Australia maintains a robust two-way trade with the Pacific Island nations valued at $3.45 billion.

To prevent Pacific Island nations from falling into PRC debt traps should China increase NLGC grain exports in the future, the United States and Quad partner Australia should consider increasing high-nutrition exports to the PICS as well as expanding educational programs on nutrition and healthy diets. Both Quad countries should also explore means of building local capacity to establish food warehouses for natural disasters.

Strategic Response

The overarching strategic objective is to ensure that Asia's supply chains and food security needs do not become dependent on the Sino-Russia Land Grain Corridor. The following actions, organized by theme, are recommended.

Diplomatic and Multilateral

• Ensure that global food security supply chains, agricultural technology transfer from U.S. companies, grain storage, and capacity-building are an essential part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). Economic growth and agriculture is already a key IPS pillar and should be further prioritized.

• Elevate global food security as a standing agenda item within Quad discussions (India, Australia, Japan, and the United States). Hold a Quad tabletop exercise in the region on this topic.

• Make global food security a central part of discussions with ASEAN nations, and strengthen private-sector partnerships on agricultural technology and AI with American companies and ASEAN nations. Malaysia currently chairs ASEAN and an event could be convened in Kuala Lumpur. The PRC has angled to chair ASEAN on more than one occasion and should be blocked if possible.

• Elevate food security as a key agenda item in C5+1 talks that the United States leads with the five Central Asian republics.

• Elevate bilateral discussions with India on food security across South Asia.

• Cooperate with the State Department's East Asia Pacific (EAP) Bureau, including China House, and the South and Central Asia (SCA) Bureau to raise the profile of this issue.

Trade and Agriculture

• Increase U.S. beef and pork exports to ASEAN nations. This would be a USDA and Foreign Agricultural Service role.

• Focus on deal-making for U.S. agricultural technology companies with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

• Conduct a cost-benefit analysis of re-routing some U.S. beef and pork exports from China to ASEAN states and Pacific Island nations. China is dependent on U.S. meat exports, and this dependency can serve as political leverage. However, meat consumption in China benefits the middle class and stabilizes CCP rule. Re-routing exports to ASEAN and Pacific Island allies may make more strategic sense in the long term. USDA and the Foreign Commercial Service would need to be involved.

• As part of peace negotiations with Russia over the war in Ukraine, negotiate new trade and tariff opportunities and incentivize Russia to break its grain alliance with China and turn westward for exports.

Capacity Building and Humanitarian Assistance

• Shore up food stocks, warehouses, and food preservation infrastructure for Nepal and Bhutan in preparation for natural disasters.

• Increase U.S. food security programming in Central Asia, with a focus on vulnerable nations such as the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.

• Increase U.S. presence in the Pacific Islands, especially at the U.S. Embassy in Fiji, to help them contend with extreme food shocks to which they are acutely vulnerable.

Civil-Military and Interagency

• Orchestrate civil-military coordination in the global food security sector with INDOPACOM and CENTCOM, which are likely already tracking these issues and seeking humanitarian and diplomatic tools in response. Consider a civil-military tabletop exercise (TTX) in Washington on this topic. This convening role previously fell to USIP and now resides under the Department of State.

• Develop a budget and supplemental Congressional notification with State F's Front Office and State H, based on these action items, to increase global food security and food assistance funding to Asia. Brief Congress accordingly.

Field Presence

• Increase the number of Foreign Service Officers and Locally Employed Staff (LES) in Asia focused on food security. Consider establishing regional food security offices in U.S. embassies. Suggested regional hubs: Colombo, Sri Lanka (covering South Asia, the Himalayan nations, and Pakistan); Bangkok, Thailand and Jakarta, Indonesia (covering Southeast Asia and ASEAN); Dushanbe, Tajikistan (covering Central Asia); and the U.S. Embassy in Fiji (covering the PICS).

Sources

Asia Society Policy Institute: "The Sino-Russian Land Grain Corridor and China's Quest for Food Security" (May 2024). https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/sino-russian-land-grain-corridor-and-chinas-quest-food-security

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): "FAO Report: In 2023, in Asia-Pacific millions of people have been unable to afford a healthy diet—women fare worse than men." https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/fao-report--in-2023--in-asia-pacific-millions-of-people-have-been-unable-to-afford-a-healthy-diet---women-fare-worse-than-men/en

Jamestown Foundation: "Russia and China Develop New Grain Corridor" (November 2023). https://jamestown.org/program/russia-and-china-develop-new-grain-corridor/