Recently, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party, Tang Renjian, has come under investigation. This news came as a surprise, as just three days before his downfall, Tang Renjian was still publicly attending events. It is also quite unusual, as there have been few cases of high-ranking officials in the agricultural sector of the CCP being investigated in recent years.
On May 18th, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CCP announced that Tang Renjian, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, is under scrutiny and investigation.
Tang Renjian’s last public appearance before his downfall was on May 15th. According to the official website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, on that day, he attended the National Rural Talent Work Conference held in Xianyang, Shaanxi, and delivered a speech.
Tang Renjian is a key policy maker in the fields of agriculture and rural affairs in the CCP, having been involved in agricultural policy research for nearly 40 years and holding important positions in the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Financial Leadership Group for a long time.
Official records show that Tang Renjian, 61 years old, is from Chongqing. After graduating from the Political Economy Department of Sichuan Finance and Economics College (predecessor of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics), he joined the former Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Fisheries of the CCP. Over the next 15 years, he gradually rose from a staff member in the Policy and Regulatory Affairs Office to Deputy Director of the Industry Policy and Regulatory Affairs Office of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Subsequently, Tang Renjian worked in the office of the Central Financial Leadership Group and the office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, which are senior coordination offices within the CCP. In 2014 and 2017, Tang Renjian was twice transferred to local governments, serving as a member of the Standing Committee of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Regional Government, and Deputy Secretary of the Gansu Provincial Party Committee and Governor. In 2020, Tang Renjian was transferred back to Beijing from Gansu to take over as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Until his investigation now, Tang Renjian had served as the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs for 3 and a half years.
It is worth noting that Tang Renjian is also a member of the 19th and 20th Central Committees of the CCP.
Regarding the investigation of Tang Renjian, Wang Juntao, Chairman of the National Committee of the China Democracy Party, stated in an interview with Epoch Times reporters on May 20th that senior CCP officials are usually scrutinized one by one by a special department of the Central Disciplinary Commission. Prior to this, the financial and military systems were investigated, and now it is the turn of the agricultural sector.
Wang Juntao explained that when high-ranking officials like Tang Renjian are investigated, special inspection teams dispatched by the Central CCP are mainly investigating their political loyalty and issues related to corruption. If it is found that the official is involved in power struggles, for example, if their factional allegiance was previously undisclosed but has been confirmed now, they will be taken down. These inspection teams do not simultaneously inspect all departments but review them one by one. When a certain department becomes the subject of investigation, a group of senior officials from that department often fall, while other departments remain relatively stable.
Official CCP media reported that during his tenure, Tang Renjian vigorously promoted the cultivation of genetically modified crops and upland rice as a senior agricultural official.
On January 23rd, the Director of the Planting Industry Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the CCP stated at a press conference that the Ministry had issued production and operation permits for genetically modified corn and soybean seeds to 26 companies and would advance related work. According to CCP Central deployment, China launched industrial trial work on genetically modified corn and soybeans in 2021. By 2023, the trial areas had expanded to 20 counties in five provinces and regions including Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Sichuan, and Yunnan, with seed production work arranged in Gansu.
On December 25th, 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the CCP issued Announcement No. 739, announcing that production and operation permits for agricultural crop seeds had been issued to 85 companies. Among them, 37 varieties of genetically modified corn and 10 varieties of genetically modified soybeans from 26 companies were approved. Previously, genetically modified crops approved for commercial planting by the CCP authorities included cotton and papaya, and crops approved for import as processing materials included soybeans, corn, cotton, rapeseed, sugar beets, and papayas.
On October 11th, 2021, the Russian regulatory agency issued an order to suspend the import of certain types of Chinese food products such as corn flour sticks, corn noodles, corn flakes, chocolate eggs, and desserts. The official Russian announcement stated that genetically modified corn DNA and soybean DNA were detected in these Chinese food products, with levels exceeding 0.9%, and some samples even had prohibited levels exceeding four times the standard. The announcement mentioned that to prevent widespread non-communicable diseases (poisoning) among the Russian population, the entry of these foods was suspended until further notice.
An anonymous Chinese genetics professional published an article titled “The CCP’s Gene Food Movement Poisoning the Nation.” The article revealed that genetically modified crops contain insect-resistant or herbicide-resistant toxins that can self-replicate. When these toxins enter the body, they may insert into genes, disrupt existing genes, and continue to produce toxins, harming themselves and future generations. Even if the consumption of genetically modified foods is stopped at that point, the damage cannot be eliminated.
The article also stated that the CCP’s Ministry of Agriculture creates a facade by claiming to have never approved the commercial planting of genetically modified grain seeds while manipulating the media to vigorously promote genetically modified organisms, claiming that genetically modified foods are safe. However, genetically modified foods are strictly prohibited in specialty foods at all levels, especially during the Beijing Olympics, Shanghai World Expo, and Guangzhou Asian Games. CCP officials themselves consume only specialty foods.
During Tang Renjian’s tenure, at the end of 2022, the CCP Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced the formal implementation of the so-called “Agricultural Management Law Enforcement” beginning from January 1, 2023, and established “Agricultural Management” law enforcement agencies in agricultural and rural departments nationwide.
The “Agricultural Management” law enforcement team, or “Agricultural Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Team,” as claimed by the CCP authorities, is mainly tasked with combating illegal activities that harm agriculture, such as counterfeiting seeds, pesticides, and veterinary drugs, without disrupting the normal production and life of farmers. However, the actual situation is quite different.
According to public information, farmers’ methods of cultivation, crops planted, and even the location of drying quilts are all under strict control by “Agricultural Management.” Netizens from various regions have uploaded videos and images exposing various behaviors of “Agricultural Management.” Instances have occurred in regions such as Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Hunan, Guangxi, and Northeast China, where “Agricultural Management” has seized livestock and other materials from farmers, arbitrarily cut down fruit trees on farms and trees on hillsides, destroyed crops, and forcefully implemented policies like “returning farmland to forests.”
Since 2018, the CCP has been building agricultural management teams, and by the end of 2022, the establishment of institutions at the municipal and county levels was completed. Data shows that there are 2,564 agricultural comprehensive administrative law enforcement-related organizations nationwide, with over 82,000 on-the-job law enforcement officers.