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.”
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS