Moo-ving back into China

US steak is back on Chinese dining tables after a 14-year absence from the Chinese market. [Photo provided to China Daily]

US beef has been absent in the Chinese market since 2003, when China banned all imports from the US following the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more commonly known as mad cow disease. Exports of US beef to China resumed this month under a new trade deal that followed the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in Florida in April.

"The reinstitution of US beef to China is huge," Sonny Perdue, the US secretary of agriculture, told China Daily on July 1. "Because of the growing middle class and the consumption of good and tasty protein, I think US producers can supply the products in demand here."

While Perdue declined to forecast the volume or value of US beef entering China in the coming years, he noted that US beef producers are eager to satisfy the appetites of Chinese consumers.

"As you know, there has been a boom in the growth of beef in China over the last four or five years, and I am convinced that once Chinese consumers taste US beef, this growth will be 10 or 20 times larger in the coming years," he adds.

"American steak is delicious," says one user on China's Twitter-like Weibo service. "It doesn't have the mutton smell of domestic beef."