Does economic policy uncertainty undermine stability of agricultural imports? Evidence from China

China is the world’s largest importer of agricultural products. Stability of agricultural imports directly affects domestic food availability, and hence influences national food security. This study is important to gauge effects of uncertainty resulting from global and domestic economic policy changes on the stability component of food security in China. Though many studies have explored the determinants and consequences of Chinese agricultural trade, research focusing on stability of agricultural imports is lacking. To fill the gap, this study calculates duration length and survival probability of China’s agri-food imports, and estimates effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the stability. Results show that trade duration of the agri-food imports is 12.07 months in China. However, 51.69% of disrupted trade relationships would resume after 2 months and 92.68% of temporarily interrupted trade relationships return to the market after 12 months. Empirical estimations show that global EPU has a larger impact on the stability of agricultural imports than Chinese EPU. Although Chinese EPU has heterogeneous effects on imports of different agri-food products in China, global EPU does not. Stabilized domestic food price and improved domestic agricultural productivity would improve stability of the imports significantly. The study concludes that China’s agricultural imports are less dynamic than previous studies claimed. However, EPU significantly erodes the trade stability. To offset negative effects of EPU on the stability, government should pay more attention on stabilizing domestic food price volatility and increasing food productivity, and therefore improve food security in China.