Chinese vegetables are uncontaminated and safe to eat, and the
pesticide residue standards set by Japan for imported vegetables
are not justified, a Chinese expert said in Beijing Thursday.
"Japan's practice appears to be a kind of trade protectionism," Cao
Xumin, president of the China Chamber of Commerce for Imports and
Exports of Foodstuffs, Natural Produce and Animal By-Products, told
Xinhua when talking about Japan's testing of vegetables imported
from China.
This year Japan has spent much time and effort examining Chinese
farm products and announced that Chinese frozen spinach has a
pesticide residue above acceptable level. This has been overstated
by some irresponsible members of the Japanese media.
Affected by such reports, the export volume of China's
fresh-preserving vegetables to Japan was only 141,700 tons in the
first six months of 2002, plummeting 23.27 percent year-on-year.
The amount of temporarily-preserved and pickled vegetables exported
to Japan also decreased.
Japan's restriction of Chinese vegetable imports conflicts with the
non-discrimination principle set by the World Trade Organization,
Cao said, adding that Japan is targeting China as 99 percent of
Japan's imported spinach comes from China.
"China's vegetables are generally safe according to Japan's
examining standards," Cao said, noting that only 0.5 percent of
Chinese vegetables examined by Japan's Ministry of Health and
Welfare from January to July this year were claimed to have
excessive pesticide residue.
Even the Chinese spinach, the focus of Japanese media, is safe, he
said. According to Japan's regulations, the residue of
chlorpyrifos, a low-level poisonous pesticide, should not exceed
0.01 ppm when spinach is concerned.
However, Japan's chlorpyrifos standard when dealing with
self-produced radish is as high as 3 ppm, 300 times more than for
spinach, the expert explained.
Other Japanese staple vegetables also enjoy much more lenient
chlorpyrifos restrictions, such as 2 ppm for cole, 1 ppm for
cabbage and 0.5 ppm for tomato, he said.
Even in accordance with such unreasonable Japanese standard, only
41 out of 467 batches of Chinese spinach exported to Japan since
late March were said to have excessive pesticide levels, said
Cao.
If
Chinese spinach is said to be "poisonous vegetable," then the
Japanese cole, cabbage and tomato should be called "deadly
poisonous vegetables," the Chinese expert said.
The conduct of Japanese government and relevant departments and the
reports of Japanese media were not aimed at protecting Japanese
consumers, but were actually a kind of trade protectionism in the
name of food security, Cao said.
However, vegetable production in China was severely damaged, and
Chinese farmers, as well as Japanese consumers, importers and food
processors, suffered losses.
Japan should re-evaluate the fairness of its pesticide restrictions
on the basis of WTO principles, and hold consultations with China
for a proper solution to the issue, Cao Xumin said.
(Xinhua News
Agency August 16, 2002)