Indian media: Shrimp is politicized in increasingly troublesome India-China relations
[Epoch Times August 5, 2021](Epoch Times reporter Lin Yan comprehensive report) India’s “Economic Times” reported on July 31 that shrimp has been politicized in the increasingly troublesome India-China relationship and is not in compliance with the CCP After refusing to accept 1,000 Indian shrimp containers, the two sides are heading for a major diplomatic showdown.
The CCP refused to accept shrimp from India on the grounds that the imported Indian shrimp were packaged with the Chinese virus (COVID-19). India has already expressed strong protest, saying that China’s allegations have no “scientific basis” and China has not shared the test report.
India is the world‘s largest shrimp exporter, and China is the second largest importer of Indian seafood. More than 46% of its imports are frozen shrimp.
The shrimp trade dispute between China and India first began in November 2020, when the CCP imposed animal and plant quarantine restrictions on Indian shrimp and negotiated with the relevant committees of the World Trade Organization. However, the situation further escalated last week. The CCP refused to accept 1,000 containers of Indian shrimp, saying that the new coronavirus nucleic acid substance was detected on the outer packaging.
The “Economic Times” reported that the Indian government strongly questioned China’s claims about the virus and listed detailed studies on how the virus cannot survive on packaging materials.
The report also quoted sources as saying that the Indian side also sought technical reports from the Chinese side, but the Chinese side refused to share it with the Indian side.
India questioned China’s virus claims and sue WTO for trade justice
The report said that the disputes caused by this “shrimp war” have expanded to the diplomatic field. The Marine Products Export Development Agency (MPEDA), the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are all preparing to use diplomatic strategies and plan to sue China to the WTO, accusing China of distortions. international trade.
The Marine Products Export Development Authority of India said: “China has made a unilateral decision on Indian seafood based on the lack of data and scientific basis. For this reason, the Marine Products Export Development Authority has requested the Ministry of Commerce to raise this issue in the WTO and expose China’s unfair trade strategy.”
“Economic Times” reported that so far, 23 Indian companies have been suspended indefinitely by the General Administration of Customs of China from exporting seafood to China on the grounds that the packaging materials of the goods shipped by these units contain the new coronavirus nucleic acid material. Another 17 units were temporarily closed for a week for the same reason.
After repeated requests from the Indian side, the Chinese side still did not share the details of the investigation results.
“Despite India’s repeated requests during bilateral meetings and through the Indian Embassy in Beijing, the General Administration of Customs of China neither shared the sampling and testing protocols followed for nucleic acid material testing, nor did it share the test results related to these so-called tests. “A statement from the Marine Products Export Development Authority of India said.
“China has been implementing these trade restrictions since November 2020, which has severely affected our export trade with China,” the Marine Products Export Development Authority of India added.
The Marine Products Export Development Bureau of India also stated that the indefinite suspension of Indian companies by the General Administration of Customs of China also violates its September 2020 regulations, which stipulate a maximum suspension of 4 weeks in the case of detection of new coronavirus nucleic acid substances.
It is reported that China’s non-tariff barriers have reduced India’s shrimp exports to China by 34% this year, and revenue in U.S. dollars has decreased by 32%.
The CCP intensifies its propaganda that the cold chain will spread the virus
Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the Chinese authorities have repeatedly declared that the virus has been detected from imported frozen food, including Norwegian salmon, Ecuadorian frozen pomfret, German pork knuckle, Indian frozen hairtail, Brazilian chicken wings and pork products, halibut, and the United States. Pig head and so on.
Recently, laptop computers, imported car accessories, ice cream, milk powder, whey powder, slippers, bakery company toilets, imported cherries, and American beer have been tested positive for COVID virus, and they have been publicly promoted among the public. If you accidentally buy these problems Goods, how to deal with them.
The United States, the European Union and other countries have always publicly refuted the CCP’s claims of cold-chain transmission of the virus. Not only that, the Macau government website, which belongs to China, also publicly opposed the CCP’s propaganda in the “rumors and fallacies of the new type of coronavirus pneumonia” in Food Safety Common Sense.
According to the Macau government website, “According to a joint document issued by 20 experts from 16 international organizations including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on April 20, 2020: There is currently no evidence that the COVID-19 pathogen can infect aquatic animals or contaminate aquatic products.”
The introduction also said that many experts pointed out that the host of the new coronavirus is mammals, and salmon and other sources of infection are unlikely to be the source of infection of the new coronavirus. At present, no human and fish have been found to suffer from this infectious disease.
However, aquatic products are the same as other foods. In the process of food storage, transportation, division, sale, etc., the surface may be contaminated with the new type of coronavirus, especially when the personnel handling the food are infected with the new type of coronavirus pneumonia. This is very common.
Zhang Wenhong, head of the Shanghai New Coronary Pneumonia Clinical Treatment Expert Team and Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, also said in an interview with the CCP’s mouthpiece media CCTV News in January 2021 that it is normal for imported cold chain surface packaging to test positive for nucleic acid. But it will not affect consumption; there are no cases of infection caused by eating cold chain food.
Zhang Wenhong also gave an example that in April 2020, the international epidemic was in a mess, and then the Chinese market also consumed countless foreign imported seafood and bought countless foreign imports, but no case of infection was found.
He said in a CCTV program that the customs has disinfected imported goods again and again, and has reduced the probability of (virus infection) to a level lower than that of an air crash. Consumers “decide” whether the cold chain will spread the virus or not.
Foreign netizens said that personally worrying about cold chain food safety is personal freedom, which is understandable, but the promotion of cold chain virus transmission is only one region in China, which is questionable.
Editor in charge: Ye Ziwei#
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