Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday called China’s recent ban on certain food and beverage imports from Taiwan “bullying through economic sanctions.”
Beijing last week unilaterally targeted Taiwanese seafood, alcohol and beverage exporters by imposing unreasonable conditions, in contravention of WTO rules, DPP legislative caucus secretary-general Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) said.
“Only Taiwanese businesses were targeted, and required to submit hard copies of registration documents to Chinese authorities by June 30, while other countries could do so online and have one more year to register,” he said.
Photo: Lo Pei-te, Taipei Times
“China also demanded that Taiwanese firms list ingredients and production processes, which are trade secrets, so they could not comply with its new registration system,” he added.
Since October last year, the government has helped 3,232 producers submit their registration applications, but 2,409 were not approved without any explanation from Chinese customs authorities, a government official said on Sunday.
“It is China putting up trade barriers, for unfair treatment against Taiwan, in direct contravention of WTO rules,” Kuo said.
Photo: Lo Pei-te, Taipei Times
DPP Legislator Huang Shih-chieh (黃世杰) said that Chinese customs demanded that Taipei-based Chia Te Bakery list ingredients and their origins, and recipes for its pineapple cakes and other products.
“China requested confidential information about the bakery’s trade secrets, so Chia Te executives could not comply, and their registration did not go through,” Huang said.
He said that King Car Food Industrial Co and state-owned Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp received a qualification code from Chinese authorities in December last year and January respectively for alcoholic beverage products
“Then, without warning, Chinese authorities demanded more documents,” he said. “Their codes were invalidated on Friday, even though they provided additional information to meet the new requirements.”
Instead of calling out China’s unilateral bans, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials are pandering to the Chinese government, DPP legislators said of a news conference the KMT caucus held earlier in the day.
KMT legislators said the bans were a result of the inaction and negligence of officials at government agencies, including at the Food and Drug Administration and the Council of Agriculture.
KMT Legislator Wu I-ding (吳怡玎) said that China announced its new regulations for food imports in April last year.
“They are not targeting Taiwan... It is because of inaction and delay by our government officials that China has halted imports of Taiwanese products in the past few days,” she said.
“China did not impose a total ban,” she added. “There is still one Taiwanese seafood company with effective registration and qualification code that can export products to China. This shows that the problem lies in the documentation process for registration.”
Taiwan does not exclude the possibility of having formal diplomatic relations with countries that also have formal ties with China, regardless of Beijing’s stance, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Sunday. There was speculation in 2012 that Honduras was attempting to have simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taiwan and China, an idea that then-minister of foreign affairs David Lin (林永樂) rejected. Honduras severed formal ties with Taiwan on Sunday morning after establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has taken a more practical approach to relations with like-minded countries since assuming government in 2016. Previous administrations took the
WASHED ASHORE: Of the 16 bodies discovered along Taiwan’s west coast this month, two were Vietnamese and five were Taiwanese, coast guard officials said Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said that he has instructed prosecutors and maritime authorities to launch investigations after 16 bodies were found along Taiwan’s west coast this month, amid speculation that they were victims of smuggling or human trafficking rings. Coast Guard Administration (CGA) officials said the bodies, most of which had washed ashore, were found by coast guard personnel and local residents along the coastline from Keelung to Kaohsiung. Thirteen of the bodies are male and three are female, the CGA said, adding that items found on the bodies indicate that two of the men were Vietnamese, while three men
TASK FORCE DISPATCHED: MOFA said it would assist state employees with repatriation or relocation to other ally nations in the region after Tegucigalpa severed ties The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Monday ordered Honduras to vacate its embassy in Taiwan within 30 days of Sunday after Tegucigalpa made a similar demand of Taiwan. Taipei on Monday announced that it had cut ties with Honduras after the Central American nation earlier said in a statement that it had established ties with Beijing and ended its diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. Following the announcements, Honduran Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Garcia spoke on Honduran television saying that Taiwan would be required to vacate its embassy in the Honduran capital. In Taipei, MOFA later told a news conference that “according
CHINA TRIP: The former president said he hoped the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would work together to pursue peace, avoid war and strive to ‘revitalize China’ Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday began a 12-day tour of China with a visit to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing. He paid tribute to Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), a founder of the Republic of China, giving a short speech and then bowing in front of the memorial. “The people of both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the Chinese nation, are children of Yandi (炎帝) and Huangdi (黃帝),” he told reporters who had been allowed to follow him on the trip, referring to figures said to have founded of the Han ethnicity in ancient China. Ma has framed the trip as
RSS