Following China’s announcement earlier yesterday that it had suspended imports of mangoes from Taiwan with immediate effect, the Ministry of Agriculture said it would take up the matter with the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) Committee.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) said in Beijing that Chinese customs officers had detected citrus mealybugs in mangoes from Taiwan, which she said pose a “severe threat” to China’s agricultural and ecological security.
Chinese officials informed Taiwan of the decision via official channels set out in a cross-strait agreement governing quarantine inspections for agricultural products, Chinese state media reported.
Photo: Taipei Times
“The above-mentioned measures are normal biosafety precautions, scientific and reasonable, and comply with relevant mainland laws, regulations and standards,” the office said.
In Taipei, the agriculture ministry criticized the suspension as unwarranted and out of step with international trade standards. It said it had not received any such complaints from other export destinations.
The ministry “deeply regrets that China has repeatedly violated international practices and arbitrarily interrupted trade without scientific dialogue,” it said in a statement.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) said that China notified the ministry on June 15 and Aug. 3 that it had detected citrus mealybugs in shipments of mangoes from Taiwan.
The ministry then traced the shipments back to their source farms, and told Chinese officials on July 4 and on Thursday last week what steps were being taken to resolve the issue, he said.
The two cases are the only times Beijing has said citrus mealybugs had been found in the 5,689 mango shipments Taiwan has exported to China since 2018, Chen said.
The low detection rate and that China did not take steps to mitigate trade impacts — such as fumigating for citrus mealybugs — as recommended by the WTO, show that Beijing’s decision was “overly harsh” and out of line with international norms, Chen said, adding that the ministry would take the case to the WTO’s SPS Committee.
The suspension from China is unlikely to have major economic repercussions, he said.
Taiwan produced 174,000 tonnes of mangoes this year, of which only 4,000 tonnes, or 2.2 percent, were exported abroad, Chen said.
This year, China imported about 1,000 tonnes of Taiwan mangoes, while Japan and South Korea imported 700 and 600 tonnes respectively, he said.
Taiwan has complained for the past three years of Chinese import bans on agricultural and aquatic goods, including pineapples and grouper fish, saying they are part of a Chinese pressure campaign.
The latest announcement was made a few days after Vice President William Lai (賴清德) returned from a visit to Paraguay that included stopovers in the US.
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS