Beijing’s decision to lift pomelo import restrictions for Hualien County, but not elsewhere, was a “zero-cost united-front tactic,” a government official said yesterday.
Earlier this month, China approved pomelo imports from 16 orchards and 19 packaging plants based in Hualien — which is governed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — but none for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-governed Tainan, where pomelos are also grown, following an initial announcement that it would remove the ban entirely, Chinese-language media reported.
China in August 2022 halted imports of Taiwanese citrus fruits, including pomelos, citing failed sanitation inspections.
Photo: Taipei Times
DPP Legislator Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文), whose constituency includes Tainan’s fruit-growing Madou District (麻豆), said that this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival “smelled like pomelo and moon cakes, but reeked of politics.”
Pomelo are traditionally eaten during the festival.
Beijing’s “one pomelo, two systems” policy is intended to sow division among Taiwanese growers, Kuo said, adding that the move proved the Chinese government’s “united-front work tactics are becoming cheap.”
Separately, an official with knowledge of the matter said that China timed the policy change to coincide with the festival for maximum political effect.
Beijing’s tactic is to play savior by causing a problem before extending a benefit to solve it, often with the help of local collaborators, such as the orchard owners and packaging plants profiting from the ban’s partial lifting, said the official, who declined to provide his name.
“This is a zero-cost united-front tactic,” the official said, adding that the purpose is to favor KMT-governed regions.
The differential treatment of Taiwan’s administrative regions is unreasonable, but confuses the public — as most Taiwanese are not familiar with the sequence of events — and tricks victimized growers into gratitude toward Beijing, he said.
KMT local government heads and elected representatives who made a show of agreeing with Beijing’s “one China” principle and the so-called “1992 consensus” in exchange for perks are contributing to the plight of the nation’s agricultural sector, he said.
The “1992 consensus,” a term that former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi’s (傅?萁) meeting in April with CCP Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning (王滬寧) exemplifies China’s use of “united front” tactics, National Cheng Kung University professor of political science Hung Chin-fu (洪敬富) said.
Fu served as Hualien County commissioner from 2009 to 2018.
By inducing local governments to agree with China to sell fruit, Beijing uses economic power as a political weapon to compromise Taiwan’s national sovereignty and turn urban areas against rural areas, he said.
Cooperating with Beijing’s strategy would erode trust in the government and foster dependency on China, which would ultimately be harmful to Taiwan’s economy and democracy, Hung said.
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