I thought the Chinese were communist. That being said, they should have a never ending supply of farmers because it would seem the people would be forced into that occupation. Also, control of who goes where (kids going to city) would be implemented.
China is not as communist in practice as it is in theory. In many ways, it has made the transition from a Communist dictatorship to a Fascist Oligarchy. I am not sure if that is an improvement or not.
Do not misunderstand it is a tightly controlled society and repressive in many ways but they can’t just tell people “Be a farmer” The current leaders are well aware of the hardships and the famine caused when Chairman Mao tried to do similar type things in the ‘60s with the “Great Leap Forward”. They know they would not survive such a situation today. They are also well aware, though they deny it publicly of the massive problems they have with pollution. About the only option, they have left is to import food.
More recently, the leaders in the PRC have the example of North Korea trying to create fishermen by taking people without the requisite skills and putting them on trawlers with a warning to not return without a full catch. The people they put on the boats to fish didn’t know how to either work the nets or pilot the boat. They got to sea and starved to death or died of exposure. Literally, 100’s of North Korean fishing trawlers with dead crews ended up on the beaches of South Korea, Japan, and China.
I placed a link to one story about this below. What it describes was a small part of the story
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/28/asia/north-korea-japan-ship/index.html
China has fairly free internal movement within the country and has had since about 1989. You no longer, to my knowledge have to get permission to move from one place to another. Or if you do, it isn’t hard to get. Chinese citizens travel to other places as tourist all the time. If the PRC tried to suddenly, by force tell people “Move back to the farm and grow rice” I don’t think it would work very well.
China has a huge problem with agriculture and it is only going to get worse.