How China got caught in the crossfire of a US bacon fight

A dispute over animal welfare and pork production has become the latest flashpoint in America’s increasingly heated farm politics

Midwestern Americans watching television this summer may have been surprised to see China and bacon appearing together in political advertisements.

“The corrupt Save Our Bacon scam in the farm bill – it’s a giveaway to Chinese corporations,” one advertisement declared over images of the Chinese flag and Chinese President Xi Jinping. “Whose side is your senator on? America or China?”

Viewers might assume the advertisement was promoting yet another Republican-led effort to counter Beijing.

The reality is far more complicated.

Behind the aggressive campaign against the Save Our Bacon Act lies a fight over how pigs are housed – and perhaps the latest example of China being weaponised in US domestic politics.

The bill has created an unexpected collision of animal welfare, agricultural regulation and America’s growing political anxiety over China, with opponents accusing a Republican-backed farm measure of putting a Chinese-owned pork giant ahead of American farmers.