Major food-producing countries are growing increasingly frustrated with China's scrutiny of imported products and are calling on it to stop aggressive testing for the coronavirus, which some say is tantamount to a trade restriction.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
China says it has found the virus on 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 trade and hurting the reputation of imported food without reason.
In a World Trade Organisation meeting on November 5-6, Canada called China's testing of imported foods and rejection of products that had positive nucleic acid tests "unjustified trade restrictions" and urged it to stop it, said a Geneva-based trade official briefed on the meeting.
Supported by Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Britain and the United States, Canada argued China had not provided 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.
The United States said on Tuesday it asked China "bilaterally" and at the WTO to ensure its measures "appropriately assess actual risks, particularly when they unjustifiably restrict trade".
"China's most recent COVID-19 restrictions on imported food products are not based on science and threaten to disrupt trade," the US Department of Agriculture said.
China has only intensified its imported food screening since then.
This week, Communist Party-backed tabloid the Global Times suggested the presence of the coronavirus in imported food raised the possibility the virus, widely believed to have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, may have come from overseas.
China began testing chilled and frozen food imports for the virus in June after a cluster of infections among workers at a wholesale food market in the capital.
The WTO says neither food nor packaging are known transmission routes for the virus.
But China, which has all but stamped out local transmission of the disease, says there is risk of the virus re-entering the country in food products.
The push-back came after months of growing frustration at the way customs and health authorities have increasingly scrutinised imports, which trade partners complain does not adhere to global norms.
In its response at the WTO, China said its actions were "provisional based on scientific basis" and designed to "protect people's lives to the maximum extent".
Australian Associated Press
