Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Ananda/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
CHINA ANNOUNCED THAT it would be ending its ban on Taiwanese pomelos earlier this month. The ban had been in place since August 2022. Nevertheless, the Chinese government’s framing of the move indicates that the move is aimed at politically influencing Taiwan through economic means.
Per the announcement from the Chinese General Administration of Customs, Taiwanese pomelo manufacturers will need to register with the Chinese government if they wish to export pomelos to China. While a seemingly harmless move, in the past, the Chinese government has been accused of seeking to learn the trade secrets of Taiwanese products by requiring companies to submit information about their manufacture if they hoped to enter the Chinese market, though this was mostly for processed food products rather than fruit.
The framing of the move is also notable. In comments, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua credited the lifting of the ban to KMT caucus leader Fu Kun-chi’s desire to see Taiwanese pomelos be exported to China.
It may be that China is hoping to credit the move to Fu, then, who traveled to China in April with a delegation of 17 KMT lawmakers–some 1/3rd of the KMT legislative caucus. Although Fu’s trip took place shortly after a visit by former president Ma Ying-jeou, the Fu trip was the one that resulted in substantive policy announcements from the Chinese government, seeing as Fu is an active figure in Taiwanese politics in a way that Ma is not.
China announced shortly after Fu’s trip that Chinese group tours would be allowed to resume to Taiwan’s outlying island of Matsu. China would seek to credit the easing of tensions and restoration of economic links to Fu.
KMT legislative caucus leader Fu Kun-chi. Photo credit: Fu Kun-chi/Facebook
To this extent, with the lifting of the ban, the Chinese government emphasized its opposition to Taiwanese independence. The Chinese government may be hoping that businesses in Taiwan seek to emphasize their support of the One China Principle, with the Chinese government having in the past suggested that it would create a list of pro-independence businesses to ban–though this would be hard to carry out in practice especially as, in the past, China has sometimes misfired and alleged that businesses supportive of the KMT were pro-independence, likely due to misunderstanding the local political context.
Either way, it is not new for China to impose bans on Taiwanese agricultural and fishery products as a means of economic and political pressure. Products targeted in the past have ranged from Taiwanese pineapples to custard apples, wax apples, mangos, grouper, and other agricultural products. At other points, products such as iconic snack Kuai Kuai, or alcoholic drinks with symbolic import as Taiwan Beer or Kinmen Kaoliang have been targeted.
When this took place, this was often by way of the claim that such products had failed food safety inspections. Yet this often took place around the time of significant political events, such as former US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, or Taiwanese presidential elections.
At the same time, while the Taiwanese agricultural industry once had high hopes for the Chinese market, China has increasingly come to be thought of as a politically risky market. A number of agricultural products were consumed domestically, as occurred with pomelos, or diverted to other markets after Chinese bans.
Yet, in particular, as farmers are a politically influential interest group in Taiwan, the onus has usually been on the government to bail out farmers. This has usually taken the form of the government announcing subsidies to make up for the shortfall, encouraging domestic consumption of such products as a patriotic act, or facilitating other countries, such as Japan, purchasing such products. Though the most visible such incident was the “Pineapple War” of 2021, this has increasingly become the pattern.
But while threats from China about trade measures, such as suggesting an end to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement if Lai Ching-te takes office, are increasingly common, it has been less common for China to announce the end of bans in past years. It is to be seen if the Chinese government announces the lifting of other bans in order to try and frame the KMT as responsible for the easing of tensions. If so, this would have more appropriately taken place around the time of trips to China by Fu or other high-profile KMT delegations, as even if there are KMT business delegations visiting China recently, they are not as high-profile as Fu’s trip.