Ban on sand exports, fruit and fish imports: How China is punishing Taiwan for hosting Nancy Pelosi

United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a first by a senior American official in 25 years, has invited the wrath of China.

After landing late on Tuesday, China immediately issued a statement, accusing the US of violating the ‘One China’ principle that maintains Taiwan is part of China.

The statement accused the United States of emboldening “separatist forces” in Taiwan. Pelosi’s visit “has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-US relations and seriously infringes upon China's sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

“These moves, like playing with fire, are extremely dangerous,” it added.

Shortly after Pelosi’s plane landed in Taipei around 10:50 pm local time, Beijing announced plans of conducting live-fire drills from 4 August to 7 August across multiple locations. It also deployed 20 military planes into Taiwan’s air defence zone.

However, military strength isn’t the only way China is hitting back at Taiwan over the American Democrat’s visit. The Asian giant has also rolled out curbs on the import of fruit and fish from Taiwan while halting shipments of sand to the island — which is bound to hurt Taiwan’s economy.

Not so sweet!

A little before Pelosi touched down in Taiwan, China suspended imports from hundreds of Taiwanese food factories, including biscuits and pastries.

The Taipei-based United Daily News reported that the ban was imposed on Monday night.

Biscuits and pastries are important trading items between Taiwan and China, including Hong Kong.

About two thirds of exports from Taiwan in 2021 were biscuits and pastries, with a total value of $646 million, Taiwanese media reports. In 2020, the value reached $660 million, accounting for 37 per cent of the total export.

In addition to the suspension of biscuit and pastries from Taiwan, China has also suspended some citrus fruit as well as fish imports — such as chilled white striped hairtail and frozen horse mackerel — from the island nation.

China defended their import of citrus fruits alleging ‘repeated’ detection of excessive pesticide residue.

No Chinese sand for Taiwan

On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it had suspended sand exports in line with unspecified legal provisions. Such a move was based on laws and regulations, the ministry said, without elaborating.

News agency AFP reports that most of Taiwan’s imported sand and gravel, which is used for producing concrete and asphalt, comes from China.

Sand is crucial for Taiwan as a raw material for construction projects, including transport and water conservancy, while it is also used for producing silicon wafers in chip production, which is one of the island’s key manufacturing sectors.

Alicia García-Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis in Hong Kong was quoted as telling Al Jazeera that halting sand exports could have a significant impact as construction has become an important source of economic growth during the pandemic.

“I would not say it is a key export from China but it does hurt Taiwan.”

As per official data, Taiwan has imported 15,703 tonnes of natural sand – including silica and quartz sands – from mainland China in the first six months of this year, accounting to $934,000. However, this is just 1.88 per cent of its total import of sand.

Australia has been Taiwan's biggest source for natural sand this year, data revealed, accounting for over 48 per cent of total imports.

More curbs to come?

Trade experts and analysts have said that China’s economic sanctions against Taiwan will ramp up in the days to come.

“If you’re doing something like fish, then it’s more symbolic and not impactful, and now (mainland officials) are looking at how they can move from those symbolic trade barriers to something that’s more impactful,” Zennon Kapron, Singapore-based director of financial industry research firm Kapronasia, told South China Morning Post.

Even Pay, an agriculture analyst at consultancy Trivium China, also agreed, saying more disruptions of agricultural and food trade can be expected in the coming days.

“When diplomatic or trade tensions are running high, Chinese regulators typically take an extremely strict approach to compliance... looking for any issues that can be used to justify a trade ban,” she told AFP.

Liu Yih-jiun, a public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan, was also quoted as saying to South China Morning Post that while mainland officials will ramp up curbs, they will avoid hurting Taiwanese people.

“Economically, they are going to do something, but not hurt the Taiwanese people because that will just raise (the sense of) nationalism.”

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time that China is imposing economic curbs on Taiwan. China banned pineapple imports in March 2021, citing the discovery of pests, in a move that was widely seen as politically driven.

Beijing had also suspended imports of pineapples, sugar apples and java apples – the top three fruit exports from Taiwan to mainland China – last year due to the detection of pests.

Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taiwan since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, as she views the island as a de facto sovereign nation and not part of “one China”.

China-Taiwan trade

Mainland China has been Taiwan’s top export destination; in 2021, 42.3 per cent of all Taiwan’s exports were to Beijing and Hong Kong combined.

In June, Taiwan’s exports to mainland China and Hong Kong reached $15.428 billion, down by 4.5 per cent year on year, while imports rose by 14.6 per cent year on year to $7.911 billion.

With inputs from agencies

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