How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

The government/party says a new farm will be created here, the order goes out.

It is all controlled from the top (communist party) through the regional council, through the local council (often a few councils inbetween). After the farm is established, a few inspections by party officials and it's all set up and operating.

This created the perfect opportunity to fudge reports like there's no tomorrow and essentially the party had no idea what is actually going on.

Papers say production is fine, orders are to maintain levels, report comes back saying everything is proceeding as ordered. In reality, production was higher than reported (with no room to grow if ordered), workers are skimming product, managers are skimming product, local council is skimming product and money, regional council is skimming money. To make up for the shit pay, but also because why not, the party won't miss it.

Orders come in to increase production, report says "no can do, need more equipment, need more land, need more workers". Of course, more than is actually needed, so someone can have their own tractors.

The black market, often in barter, was huge.

The party in Moscow could not contain its spread even with their network of spies. People trusted each other, not the party, the police were in on it.

Not sure if that's how it works in China, but they have the advantage of instant communications, instant checks on any level, modern surveillance.

This turned out messy, I'm too tired.

The snark likely comes from the fact that Xinjiang is consistently portrayed in Western media as a nightmarish, dystopian, Orwellian hellhole suffering under the iron fisted oppression of the Communist Party. They ignore the very real benefits that have been afforded to millions of poverty-stricken people in Xinjiang via progressive government policies, while tunnel visioning solely on human rights abuses.

It is true that the state throws absolutely colossal amount of resources on geoengineering and agriculture, yet to little effect.

China is nowhere near Holland or other advanced agriculture player in calories production per unit of labour.

Out of close to a 100 officials I went by through my career, I only managed to befriend two. From those two, I barely know in the most generalised terms of what is happening in top tiers.

Agriculture meetings are alleged to be the non-stop shit show, an every day crisis, and a way to demotion for the prime majority of cadres put on the agri committees, as most of them fail at the task.

Provincial level party executives all send their deputies instead of themselves to them as they fear demotion and penalties if they say something silly at those meetings.

Chinese bureaucracy does not deserve much credit there. Were that much of money be given to just anybody moderately competent, China would've long beaten even Holland on that.