In a pointed presentation at the US National Pork Forum, Hayes noted that China has seven per cent of the world's land and 22pc of the world's people - making one of the world's largest nations still one that's land scarce and, therefore, one that will need to import either grain or grain-fed meat.

As it's very costly to import grains, he said, the country likely will import meat, especially pork, which is the most-consumed meat in China.

History shows, he added, that government resistance to importing meat never succeeds because citizens will demand access to less-expensive imported meat, especially if it's of greater quality than domestically produced product.

China will also need to push its domestic pork production sector to one that's more commercial scale, Hayes said, noting that the majority of pork produced in China today is produced on very small farms - e.g., farms as small as 1-9 head (101,963,901 farms) produce 52.9% of the country's pork.

However, migration to commercial-scale production will be limited by lack of grain-producing capacity, he added, which, again, will favor import policies that provide consumers access to U.S. pork.

This has occurred elsewhere in land-scare nations such as Japan and South Korea, he said.