For 61-year-old atemoya farmer Tsou Yun-shing in Taiwan’s Taitung County, the last two years have been a tough time for his business.
Since China banned the import of atemoyas from Taiwan in September 2021, his revenues have been slashed in half and he has had to look for alternative markets.
“Before the ban, around 80 to 90% of my atemoyas were sold to China. But since they banned the import of Taiwanese atemoyas, I have to start selling my atemoyas through different sales channels in Taiwan, hoping to at least even the costs,” he told VOA during an interview at his sprawling orchards in Taitung county in eastern Taiwan.
In addition to redirecting his atemoyas to the domestic market, Tsou also reduced the number of atemoyas he grows and started growing other fruits that are more popular in Taiwan, such as guava.
China markets
Tsou is not alone. His experience reflect a dilemma many Taiwanese fruit farmers have faced over the past two years, as China banned imports of several Taiwanese fruits that rely heavily on the Chinese market, including pineapples, wax apples and atemoyas.
While the Taiwanese government has been able to help some farmers, with fruits such as pineapples, find alternate markets like Japan to neutralize the potential losses they face, the heavy reliance of atemoya farmers on the Chinese market makes finding a solution more difficult.
“Since there is uncertainty about whether China would let Taiwanese atemoyas enter the Chinese market or not, some farmers have shifted to growing other fruits, such as custard apples, avocados, passion fruits and guavas, to reduce their reliance on the Chinese market,” Lai Xi-yao, chairman of Chi-Gen Vegetable and Fruit Co-operative, told VOA in an interview in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung.
In his view, China’s intention to allow large amounts of specific Taiwanese agricultural products into the Chinese market is an attempt to “win over the hearts and minds” of Taiwanese farmers and acquire Taiwan’s expertise in growing certain species of fruits or fisheries.
“When [Beijing] wants Taiwanese farmers to export their products to China, they will agree to whatever requests the farmers have but once they acquire the know-how about how to grow certain species of fruits, they will start blocking the imports from Taiwan,” Lai said.
He said the agricultural trade with China is not “normal” because Chinese authorities can use any excuse to ban imports of Taiwanese agricultural products.
“It’s obvious that these bans all have political elements behind them,” he told VOA.
In a statement announcing the end of the import ban on Taiwanese groupers released last month, the Chinese Communist Party’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles cross-strait relations, said as long as both sides of the Taiwan Strait adhere to the 1992 Consensus, a compromise agreement that Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang interprets as the two sides agreeing there's one China, with each free to define what that is, and oppose Taiwan independence, the two sides are one family and "family matters can be discussed and resolved,” referring to import bans on several Taiwanese agricultural products.
Apart from leveraging certain Taiwanese agricultural products’ reliance on the Chinese market to impose pressure on the Taiwanese government, China has unleashed a series of coercive economic measures to influence Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections on January 13. During an interview with Taiwanese media Liberty Times on January 5, Taiwanese Premier Chen Chien-jen said China’s decision to suspend tariff reduction on 12 Taiwanese petrochemical products is of political rather than economic nature.
Recent import actions
In recent weeks, China has partially lifted import bans on groupers, a fish that used to rely heavily on export to the Chinese market, and atemoyas from Taiwan, while suspending tariff reductions on 12 Taiwanese petrochemical products. In a statement released last month, the Communist Party’s Taiwan Affairs office accused Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party or DPP of violating articles in the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement between Taipei and Beijing and install obstacles to viciously disrupt cross-strait economic exchange and cooperation.
Taiwanese authorities have criticized Beijing for politicizing trade issues ahead of the election and promised to work with affected industries to minimize the impact. On Tuesday evening, China’s commerce ministry signaled that it’s considering to further suspend tariff concessions on several products from Taiwan, including agriculture, fishery, machinery, auto parts and textiles, according to a statement posted on its website. In response, Taiwan’s Office of Trade Negotiations urged Beijing to “immediately stop using economic coercion to try to interfere in Taiwan’s election.”
To adapt to the challenges posed by China, Taiwanese authorities try to help farmers reduce their reliance on the Chinese market and redirect their products to alternative markets like Japan and South Korea.
According to data from Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture, China accounted for 12.9% of Taiwan's fruit exports in 2022, down from 22.9% in 2018. Apart from looking for alternative markets, Tsou in Taitung said the government also provided different types of subsidies to help cherimoya farmers like him survive the two-year ban.
“Taiwanese authorities provided different kinds of subsidies and helped promote cherimoyas to large grocery chains in Taiwan,” he told VOA. “While farmers were able to survive the last two years without exporting their fruits, they couldn’t make any profit.”
Despite the subsidies and efforts to help redirect agricultural products to alternative markets, some analysts say the Taiwanese authorities’ response to the challenges may not have been timely enough.
“After Beijing banned imports of Taiwanese pineapples, I urged authorities to consider preparing responses for a potential Chinese ban on atemoyas,” Chiao Chun, an expert on cross-strait agricultural trade and author of the book “Fruit Politics,” told VOA in an interview in Kaohsiung.
“However, Taiwanese authorities’ response to China’s atemoya ban was still too slow, which leaves atemoya farmers in a tough situation even today,” Chiao added.
Domestic policies
China’s targeted sanctions on Taiwanese agricultural products that rely heavily on the Chinese market have also affected domestic politics in Taiwan.
Some farmers in Taitung told VOA that they will vote for the China-friendly opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) in the upcoming election because they believe this is the only way to guarantee China will end import bans on all atemoyas from Taiwan.
But Tsou holds a different view from most of his peers.
“If there is regime change after the election on Saturday, the outcome will make a difference to the situation that most atemoya farmers face,” he told VOA. “Farmers can start exporting to China if the KMT wins the election on Saturday.”
However, he also thinks Taiwanese farmers shouldn’t rely on anyone for their livelihood, since reliance will make them more vulnerable to coercive economic measures like import bans on certain products.
“As long as farmers take good care of the quality and establish different sales channels, they don’t necessarily need to rely on export to sustain their businesses,” Tsou said. “I think democracy is still more important.”
