In response to Taiwan President Lai Ching-te's recent claim that mainland China has weaponized agricultural products and seeks to use agriculture to pressure politics, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Mainland stated that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has long unilaterally restricted mainland agricultural products from entering Taiwan, obstructing normal economic and trade exchanges and cooperation across the Strait.
Spokesperson Zhu Fenglian of the Taiwan Affairs Office said at a regular press conference on Thursday that the mainland has always been an important export market for Taiwan’s agricultural products, but the DPP has, for a long time, unilaterally restricted more than a thousand types of mainland agricultural products from entering Taiwan, hindering normal cross-strait economic and trade exchanges and cooperation. She added that the DPP even threatened to punish county and city mayors as well as related agricultural and fishery associations that proactively promote the export of Taiwan’s agricultural and fishery products to the mainland.
She also pointed out that the DPP “kowtows to the US and ingratiates itself to them, selling out Taiwan’s core industries” by implementing zero tariffs on 4,885 categories of industrial products and 1,482 types of agricultural products from the US, which has seriously damaged the interests of Taiwan’s related industries and the well-being of its people.
Zhu Fenglian stated that grassroots industry practitioners in Taiwan are deeply worried and feel great resentment at the fact that the DPP not only fails to help farmers and fishermen solve real problems, but also makes every effort to obstruct cross-strait exchanges and cooperation, deluding themselves into thinking that “sacrificing” domestic industries and people’s livelihoods will please outsiders. The mainland side urges the DPP to stop political manipulation and do more things that are beneficial to the interests and well-being of the people of Taiwan.