China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) on Wednesday last week announced that it would resume imports of Taiwanese custard apples, soon after a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation attended the Straits Forum in Xiamen, China, which has long served as a “united front” platform to promote unification.
China’s arbitrary implementation and lifting of import bans on Taiwanese products is an example of Beijing using its economic clout as a tool for political manipulation. After banning the importation of Taiwanese pineapples and wax apples, China suspended imports of custard apples in 2021, citing “repeated discovery of agricultural pests” in shipments.
China’s customs office ignored the Ministry of Agriculture’s questions about Beijing’s quarantine regulations and conditions, and refused to engage in dialogue using a cross-strait trading platform — all in contravention of the WTO’s trading rules, and its Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures used for notifying incidents and verifying the facts.
China’s decision to resume Taiwanese custard apple imports only applies to 25 orchards and three packing plants in Taitung County, out of Taiwan’s 1,009 orchards and 50 packing plants. The announcement did not provide any scientific reasons for the decision to resume imports, only saying that it was based on a report by Taitung County authorities detailing local farmers’ improved quarantine measures.
The TAO also said that KMT Taitung County Commissioner Yao Ching-ling (饒慶鈴) and KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言), both of whom attended the forum, had relayed their wish to export Taitung’s custard apples to China.
The reports were also included in the agriculture ministry’s notice to China regarding Taiwanese farmers’ quarantine processes and achievements — but the ministry received no reply.
The limited resumption of imports is obviously a political reward for the Taitung County Government for sending representatives to the forum, as well as a favor for the KMT, which parrots Beijing’s unification propaganda at every opportunity.
By banning imports of Taiwanese agricultural products, China aims to sow dissent among Taiwanese farmers against the Democratic Progressive Party government, while seizing trade markets from Taiwan. China was found to have been illegally cultivating patented Taiwanese pineapples in Hainan and Guangdong provinces, and has been raising Taiwanese Queensland groupers to be exported to Japan.
Experts have said that Beijing is using the “cultivate, trap, kill” strategy to exploit foreign investors: It first cultivates ties with foreign firms keen to profit from the country’s vast market, then traps them by stealing their trade secrets or technology. Finally, it kills the business partnerships and replaces foreign investors with local firms.
However, in an ironic twist for China, its import bans targeting Taiwanese firms have encouraged the companies to explore new markets: In 2018, 23.2 percent of Taiwan’s agricultural exports went to China, but last year that figure fell to 12.9 percent. The US and Japan have surpassed China to become the biggest markets for Taiwanese agricultural products.
The direct economic effects of China’s restrictions on Taiwanese agriculture industry has been limited, but the coercive measures should nevertheless serve as warning signs for Taiwanese.
However, former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman and its presidential candidate, and New Taipei City Mayor and the KMT’s presidential candidate Ho You-yi (侯友宜) have proposed restarting talks on a cross-strait service trade agreement, which had sparked the 2014 Sunflower movement.
Such proposals would risk losing more markets and jobs to China. Taiwanese should be cautious, and not fall for Beijing’s “cultivate, trap, kill” schemes.
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