No feedback from Taiwan on substandard pineapple: mainland spokesperson

A farmer harvests pineapples in Dashu District of Kaohsiung, southeast China's Taiwan, on March 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Guojun)

BEIJING, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Despite the Chinese mainland informing Taiwan of the substandard quality of 28 batches of its pineapple in 2020 and reminding it to strengthen management at the source, Taiwan has neither provided any feedback nor rectified the situation, a mainland spokesperson said Wednesday.

The mainland's decision to suspend pineapple imports from the Taiwan region effective from March 1 is a standard precautionary measure to ensure agricultural production and biosecurity, said Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, at a press conference.

Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority has closed the door to solving the problem by politicizing what is actually a technical problem in a malicious attempt to smear the mainland, Zhu noted.

Since 2020, customs authorities on the mainland have in various instances found pests in pineapple imported from Taiwan, which would have posed a serious threat to the mainland's agriculture and ecological security had they not been intercepted.