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Major food-producing countries are increasingly frustrated with China’s scrutiny of imported products, asking it to stop aggressive testing for the novel coronavirus, which some say amounts to a trade restriction.
China says it has found the virus in the packaging of products from 20 countries, including German pork, Brazilian beef and Indian fish, but foreign officials say the lack of evidence produced by authorities means it is damaging the trade and reputation of imported food for no reason.
At a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on November 5-6, Canada called China’s testing of imported food and the rejection of products that had positive nucleic acid tests “unjustified trade restrictions” and urged it to stop the practice, said a Geneva-based body. A trade official reported on the meeting that he declined to be named.
With the support of Australia, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States, Canada argued that China had not provided any scientific justification for the measures, the official said.
Canada’s Geneva-based mission to the WTO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China has only stepped up its selection of imported food since then.
This week, the Global Times, a tabloid backed by the ruling Communist Party, suggested that the presence of the new coronavirus in imported food raised the possibility that the virus, which is believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late last year, it could have come from abroad.
China began testing imports of refrigerated and frozen food for the virus in June, following a series of infections among workers at a wholesale food market in the capital.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says that neither food nor packaging are known routes of transmission for the virus.
But China, which has virtually eradicated local transmission of the disease, says there is a risk of the virus re-entering the country in food products.
‘It is true?’
The setback came after months of growing frustration over the way customs and health authorities have been increasingly scrutinizing imports, with trading partners complaining that they do not adhere to global standards.
“Whenever a health authority runs a test and finds something, it must share the results,” said a Beijing-based diplomat who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“We haven’t received a single lab test,” he said. “Everyone is wondering ‘Is it true? Did they really find something? Everyone is surprised that no evidence is presented. “
On Monday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also questioned China’s findings, after the city of Jinan said it had detected the new coronavirus in New Zealand frozen meat.
Ardern said he was confident that meat products would not be exported from his country with the coronavirus, but that China did not provide any clarification.
In August, Brazilian officials traveled to the city of Shenzhen after finding traces of the coronavirus in chicken wings from their country.
Authorities were unable to provide information on whether they had found the virus active or not, the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture said.
The United States said Tuesday it called on China “bilaterally” and at the WTO to ensure that its measures “adequately assess real risks, particularly when they unreasonably restrict trade.”
“China’s latest COVID-19 restrictions on imported food products are not based on science and threaten to disrupt trade,” the US Department of Agriculture said.
In its response at the WTO, China said its actions were “provisional based on a scientific basis” and designed to “protect people’s lives as much as possible,” according to a Chinese trade official.
China has pointed to its isolation of live coronavirus from samples of imported frozen cod, a world first, as proof, albeit with unpublished evidence, that coronavirus can be transmitted from food to people.
Speaking at a food safety conference this month, Gudrun Gallhoff, advisory minister for health and food safety in the European Union delegation to China, said exporters needed more information on China’s test methods and results.
“If you have business partners, you must treat them fairly and give them the opportunity to be complicit,” he said.
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