I can see how the title would color your reading of the article, but they immediately address that in the second paragraph. I think the author (or perhaps editor, given all the title changes) realizes that your average Times reader isn’t even going to bother clicking on a headline which seems positive about China, so they have to reel them in with a title and a leading paragraph before actually saying what they actually want to say.

I think the op ed does a great job at explaining China’s motives, which basically lead you to the conclusion that, well duh, what country in China’s situation wouldn’t be trying to improve their food security, and also that increased Chinese food security is not an attack on the US. The only thing that I raised an eyebrow at was this bit

It’s hard to imagine Chinese diners completely giving up meat, but when the government goes all in on something and prepares the public for it through state-controlled media, the people usually fall in line.

but given how grounded the article is as a whole (they even managed to mention Xinjiang as simply a place in China!!) and how much time they spend countering Sinophobic canards I’ll let it slide, since that makes the author better than 99% of the absolute scum of the earth that usually populates the Times op ed section. I mean, compare it with one of the other op eds the author links to (“Let’s All Take a Deep Breath About China”) which pulls out all the tired tropes:

Of course, the United States should actively confront President Xi Jinping of China about his repression at home and aggression abroad. As a scholar of China’s political system, I worry about how Mr. Xi has made his country even more authoritarian; about increasing human rights abuses in China, particularly those directed at the Uyghur population in Xinjiang; about Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong, its threats toward Taiwan, its increasingly cozy relationship with Russia and its support for the war in Ukraine. America must remain alert to legitimate concerns about well-documented Chinese activities such as espionage and cyberattacks.

But should our policymakers really be focusing on Tutor.com, Chinese garlic or “Barbie”? Or should they concentrate on the more serious threats posed by China’s authoritarian system, or the many other issues that meaningfully affect the day-to-day lives of Americans?

When that’s the baseline, I’m not going to get too heated about “state-controlled media” when the author never does this pathetic State Department groveling act–this op ed is the most levelheaded writing on China a lib is likely to ever read.

As far as the holy grail thing, I didn’t take it that way. I think the author is correct that it’s a difficult problem (if it weren’t, someone would have solved it already), but they also correctly identify that the Chinese system is uniquely equipped to tackle these difficult problems and may have a better chance than the venture-capital-directed American firms, and they do so without the usual whining about unfairness.