More than rattling oil markets, the war in Iran has exposed an important truth: supply chain independence is crucial and energy security is the ultimate geopolitical power flex.
As I have argued previously, China appears better prepared than most for that reality, and its advantage may soon extend from clean energy to the next frontier of food technology: sustainable proteins.
For years, climate advocates have leaned heavily on consumer nudges and lifestyle appeals to shift food systems to lower-emission choices. This has not worked. People cannot remake food systems one menu choice at a time when the underlying economics still favour cheap meat, empty calories and highly subsidised incumbents. China, to its credit, has never relied on that logic. It prefers system design, industrial policy and scale.
That difference matters now. The ripple effects of the war will not stop at transport and electricity. They will run straight through agriculture and food processing, pushing up the cost of fertiliser, refrigeration, logistics and feed for many months to come. In practical terms, that means conventional meat, dairy and crops become more expensive to produce and distribute. In some markets, that could make alternative proteins more attractive, not because consumers have suddenly become greener, but because the math has changed.
China has already shown how quickly it can turn a strategic vulnerability into a nation-building industry. Its clean energy buildout was not driven by a moral awakening or consumer nudges. It was driven by a determination to secure energy independence and a willingness to treat energy as a security issue. This electrostate strategy has helped buffer it against global price shocks, making it a more reliable industrial power than many fossil fuel exporters.
That same logic is now being applied to food. Beijing has made clear that food resilience is not a fringe sustainability question; rather, it’s a strategic imperative. The country’s 15th Five-Year Plan gives new protein sources a place on the national agenda, alongside broader goals for food security, biomanufacturing and technological self-reliance. That is a meaningful signal. China does not usually fund an industry because it sounds fashionable. It funds it because it sees a strategic use case.
China’s leaders understand that keeping 1.4 billion people fed is not just about volume; it is about affordability, nutrition and stability. Reliable energy, cleaner air and secure protein supply all sit in the same policy basket. Sustainable proteins, whether cultivated, fermented or plant-based, are not being framed simply as replacements for animal protein. They are being positioned as optionality: a way to broaden supply, reduce import dependence and create a more resilient food system.
This is where China’s advantages compound. It has a deep engineering base, a state that can back long-horizon industrial bets and a bureaucracy that is unusually comfortable with five- and 10-year timelines. Those strengths matter in sectors like cultivated meat and precision fermentation, where the hardest problems are not branding or consumer education. The challenges are about scale-up, equipment, inputs and manufacturing economics. As with EVs and solar, the real prize is not proving the concept. It is dragging costs down far enough that adoption becomes automatic.
The rest of the world should pay attention because the China playbook is already visible. Beijing did not wait for perfect consumer demand in EVs. It subsidised domestic champions, built supply chains, pushed scale and brought costs down fast enough to dominate the sector. The same pattern now looks plausible in sustainable proteins: state-backed R&D, pilot plants, industrial capacity, and eventually, a cost curve that makes China the place where this category matures first.
There is no guarantee that the path will be smooth. Higher energy costs can also squeeze the sector’s inputs. Fertiliser prices rise, shipping gets disrupted, and many alternative protein startups depend on imported enzymes, growth media and specialised equipment. In other words, geopolitical shocks can help the sector’s story while hurting its operating environment. However, I would argue that this tension is precisely why future-food can no longer be treated as a niche innovation story. It is infrastructure.
There is a wider lesson for middle-income countries here. While they may not have China’s scale, they do have the same exposure to food and energy volatility. For them, the real question is not whether sustainable proteins are futuristic. It is whether they want to remain dependent on fragile global supply chains for essentials that can be produced more locally over time. In that sense, China’s model is less a perfect template than a compelling direction of travel.
Western governments still tend to treat the food transition as something to be encouraged through better labelling, choice architecture and consumer persuasion. China is more likely to treat it as industrial policy. In the current geopolitical climate, that may prove to be the more effective approach. The next global race in food tech won’t be won by the company with the best marketing story, but by the country most willing to build the system beneath it.
Sonalie Figueiras is a food systems and climate policy leader, the founder and editor-in-chief of Green Queen Media and an Asia Global Fellow ‘25.
