Unique in style and famously divisive, durian isn’t everybody’s collection of fruit. This was once no doubt the case for some Chinese language explorers after they first encountered it throughout the Ming Dynasty’s early maritime voyages.
One document dates again to 1413, when a translator known as Ma Huan travelled to what’s now Malaysia on a shuttle with diplomat and admiral Zheng He. In his travelogue, Ma described durian as a “stinky fruit” that smelled like “rotten beef”.
However speedy ahead six centuries and this tropical fruit has settled into Chinese language day-to-day lifestyles. China is now the sector’s peak importer of durian, accounting for round 95% of world call for. Its imports surged to a document top of just about US$7 billion (£5.2 billion) in 2024.
Such is the recognition of durian in China that governments throughout south-east Asia, the place many of the global’s durian is produced, are the usage of its export as a device of political and financial affect.
Staff organize durian at a fruit marketplace close to Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
Rungroj Yongrit / EPA
For years, gifting top-quality durians to Chinese language officers has been a technique south-east Asian governments have sought to domesticate goodwill. On a talk over with to Beijing in 1975, for instance, former Thai high minister Kukrit Pramoj talented 200 durians to Chinese language leaders.
Extra lately, in 2024, Malaysia’s King Ibrahim introduced Chinese language president Xi Jinping two packing containers of top rate durians throughout a state talk over with. This integrated the prized Musang King, a wide range this is ceaselessly referred to in China because the “Hermès of durians” – a nod to the unique Hermès type logo, which is understood in China for excessive status.
The Chinese language premier, Li Qiang, and Malaysia’s high minister, Anwar Ibrahim, had additionally been filmed previous that 12 months sat in combination tackling a durian with a knife and spoon. The standard technique to devour a durian is to open the fruit and devour the flesh by way of hand.
On the other hand, durian is greater than only a image of friendship between south-east Asian states and Beijing. China’s huge call for for durians has boosted home financial expansion around the area, turning some prior to now deficient agricultural spaces into websites of prosperity.
Consistent with Eric Chan, a Malaysian durian farmer who was once interviewed by way of the New York Occasions in 2024, income from durian gross sales to China has remodeled his the city. Chan mentioned durian farmers there were ready to rebuild their properties from “wood to brick” and will now “afford to send their children overseas for university”.
South-east Asian international locations have extensively utilized China’s urge for food for durian to improve their financial relationships with Beijing. Vietnamese durian exports, for example, were credited with opening get entry to to the Chinese language marketplace for different locally produced agricultural items.
And Malaysia’s deputy high minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, has overtly introduced that he sees durian exports in an effort to protected follow-up Chinese language investments. “Durian diplomacy is not just diplomacy – it is durian business,” mentioned Hamidi in November. “We need to work with Chinese businessmen to further develop Musang King plantations in Malaysia, and we should also strengthen downstream industries together.”
Meals silk street
For China, the durian industry is a part of a broader technique. Since taking energy in 2013, Xi has time and again wired that his nation will have to safeguard its meals safety. Researchers describe the ensuing means as a “food silk road”, an rising community of investments and industry agreements designed to diversify China’s meals imports throughout many areas of the sector.
Durian from south-east Asian international locations is thus one a part of a much broader waft. New Zealand exports maximum of its top rate gold kiwifruit to China, with the Chinese language marketplace an similarly vital vacation spot for Chilean cherries. Experiences recommend that shipments of Kenyan avocados to China also are expanding.
Donald Trump’s go back to the White Area in January, and the following world chaos that was once unleashed by way of his sweeping tariff marketing campaign, has enabled China to consolidate those relationships. Within the first quarter of 2025, for instance, Chinese language imports of agricultural merchandise from contributors of the Affiliation of Southeast Asian International locations reached just about US$7.5 billion – a 14% building up from the similar duration in 2024.
Consistent with Chatham Area, a UK-based world affairs thinktank, Trump’s erratic insurance policies have ended in declining perceptions of the United States amongst south-east Asian officers. This will see international locations within the area, together with conventional US allies such because the Philippines and Thailand, shift additional in opposition to Beijing’s sphere of affect within the close to long run.
A Musang King plantation in Pahang, central Malaysia, taking on rubber and oil palm farms.
Irene.C / Shutterstock
China’s durian growth has delivered speedy expansion in south-east Asia, nevertheless it has additionally produced a number of unintentional penalties. The status quo of recent durian plantations, for instance, has ended in deforestation in Indonesia, Laos and Malaysia. This has disrupted native habitats and ecosystems, posing a possibility to endangered animal species such because the Malayan tiger.
Because the Chinese language marketplace continues to develop, south-east Asian international locations will even wish to get ready for emerging international regulate over provide chains and regulatory uncertainty in an volatile world financial system. The problem for those states shifting ahead shall be to seize some great benefits of Chinese language durian call for whilst managing the growth of the trade.
