CHINA-CANADA TENSIONS ESCALATE AMID “FORGED” CERTIFICATES OF CANADIAN PORK

Canadian politician, conservative leader Andrew Scheer, is urging Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, to step up inspections and consider retaliatory tariffs on all products from China days after China announced that it was suspending all imports of Canadian meat, including beef and pork products, due to its concerns over fraudulent inspection reports. In late June, Chinese customs authorities inspected and found ractopamine residues – an additive that is banned in China –  in a batch of pork products exported from Canada to China, and Chinese authorities immediately suspended the import of pork products from Canada on June 26, 2019. Canadian authorities opened an investigation into the matter, which revealed that the official veterinary health certificates attached to the batch of pork exported to China were counterfeit and that the number of “forged” certificates reached 188. These forged certificates were sent to the Chinese regulatory authorities through Canadian official certificate notification channel, which means that the Canadian meat export supervision system may be compromised. The Canadian side suspects a criminal offence has occurred, such as someone hacking into the Canadian system to issue the forgeries; the investigation is ongoing and is being conducted by the RCMP in collaboration with Chinese authorities. Trade tensions between China and Canada began when Canadian police arrested at the request of the US, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese technology company Huawei, at Vancouver airport on Dec 1, 2018.