Comparison of Food Prices between China and Japan Has Been Released, Leaving Japanese People in Shock: Who Is the Developed Country?
Recently, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released a set of data: Chinese per capita fruit consumption is 4.1 times that of Japan, per capita vegetable intake is 4.2 times that of Japan, and even meat - a food traditionally seen as a symbol of high-income countries - has a per capita consumption in China that is 40% higher than that of Japan. More importantly, China's per capita daily protein intake not only remains among the top in Asia but also enters the global top ten. This gap has left many Japanese netizens reflecting: who is really the developed country?
As of early 2026, a 5-kilogram bag of rice in Japan has exceeded 4,300 yen (about RMB 194 yuan), while in China, the price of rice of the same quality is generally between 20 to 30 yuan RMB. The price difference of basic ingredients such as eggs, cabbages, and pork is even more significant. For example, a regular large cabbage in Tokyo market often costs between 800 to 2000 yen (about 40-100 RMB), while in most Chinese cities, a cabbage of the same size costs only about 5 yuan. This price difference directly determines the richness of the family dining table.
Daguo thinks that if you think carefully, you can understand. After all, China has the most complete agricultural product production and distribution system in the world, from the corn belt in Northeast China, the wheat area in North China to the vegetable and fruit bases in South China, forming a highly self-sufficient and cost-controlled supply network. In contrast, Japan, due to limited arable land resources and an aging agricultural population, relies heavily on imports for basic foods, combined with high logistics costs and strict quarantine systems, leading to high terminal prices.
Although Japan's per capita GDP is still higher than China (approximately $33,000 and $13,400 respectively in 2024), high prices severely erode residents' actual purchasing power. Taking the minimum hourly wage as an example, working one hour in Tokyo might just be enough to buy a cabbage; while in second and third-tier Chinese cities, the same amount of income could cover several meals of staple food or even part of the protein sources.
In recent years, the average height of Chinese teenagers has continued to increase and has surpassed Japanese peers in multiple age groups, which is closely related to the intake of high-quality protein and diverse fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, Japanese society faces hidden crises such as "low-nutrition school lunches" and "dietary poverty among single elderly people," even extreme incidents like "feed rice being mistakenly sold for human consumption," exposing the fragility of food security.
Daguo asks: when "eating enough, eating well, and eating varied" becomes the core indicator of quality of life, does the "developed country" label on Japan need to be redefined? Otherwise, what is the significance of being a developed country? If you can't even solve such a big issue as food, how dare you claim to be developed?
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1855172297504969/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.