Taipei has accused China of smuggling vegetables into Taiwan via Vietnam in a bid to evade import restrictions, with officials vowing to crack down on a practice they say amounts to “origin washing”.

Taiwan, which bans the importation of more than 1,000 Chinese agricultural and fishery products, said firms in China were evading restrictions by rerouting vegetables like Napa cabbage and shiitake mushrooms through neighbouring Vietnam.

The items, officials claimed, are then repackaged as Vietnamese goods and imported into Taiwan.

Taiwan’s agriculture minister Chen Junne-jih told lawmakers at a legislative meeting on Wednesday that his ministry is adopting measures to combat origin laundering, including imposing strict penalties on violators.

Chen also said his ministry would “carry out aerial surveys in Vietnam” in order to map out how much produce could feasibly originate from certain areas.

“If the volume exported to Taiwan exceeds that, there should be a mechanism to address it,” he said.

China’s Taiwan office and Vietnam’s foreign affairs ministry have been contacted for comment.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Chiu Yi-ying said it was possible to fraudulently purchase an official Vietnamese certificate of origin for as little as NT$13,000 (about $410). Importers can then make profits of between NT$200,000 and NT$500,000 per container, she added.

Chiu called on the agriculture ministry to crack down on the practice by requiring third-party isotope testing to assess the product’s origin.

China claims Taiwan as a breakaway province, despite never having ruled the self-ruled island democracy, and has vowed to retake it by force if necessary.

The early 2000s were marked by a period of greater economic cooperation between China and Taiwan, culminating in the signing of a landmark free trade agreement between Beijing and Taipei in 2010.

But recent years have seen China attempt to intimidate Taiwan’s ruling pro-sovereignty DPP and president Lai Ching-te, who Beijing have labelled a “dangerous separatist”, by ramping up its military, political and economic pressure.

The export and import of food items is just one area of tension in relations between Beijing and Taipei.

China first suspended the import of Taiwanese pineapples in 2021, citing pest control concerns – an act labelled political by Taipei. In September 2024, Taipei accused Beijing of violating World Trade Organization rules when it banned imports of several more Taiwanese fruits, vegetables and seafood.

Taiwan condemned the move as “economic coercion”, saying it “harms the interests of farmers” on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

China has, in return, accused Taiwan of violating the terms of its 2010 free trade agreement by banning the import of 2,509 Chinese products.

Additional reporting by Yu-chen Li