US pork imports stuck at Chinese ports as Beijing ramps up inspections amid trade row
Wednesday, 09 May, 2018, 4:35pm
China has ramped up inspections of pork shipped from the United States, importers and industry sources said, the latest American product to be hit by a potentially costly slowdown at Chinese ports in the past couple of weeks.
Some industry watchers said Beijing was sending a defiant warning to Washington in response to sweeping US trade demands made on China last week.
The stepped-up checks have even hit China’s WH Group, the world’s largest pork company and owner of Smithfield Foods in the United States, and come amid increasing scrutiny of other US agricultural goods, including fruit and logs.
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http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy...jing-ramps
Looks familiar? It looks like Vietnam is not the only one to be penalised in its pork trade with China. But what has Vietnam done to offend China?
Vietnam asks Beijing to remove military equipment from South China Sea to maintain ‘peace and responsibility’
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/...-china-sea
Vietnam ‘scraps South China Sea oil drilling project under pressure from Beijing’
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy...ng-project
For about a thousand years, Vietnam has been under the thumb of China, being subject to military invasions, tributary demands, and more recently growing trade deficit. In the 1980s, there was also the issue of Cambodia. Today, the biggest issue between them is territorial disputes in South China Sea. Just as China has laid claim to the Spratly and Paracel Islands, China has been exploiting resources (fishing and oil) in Vietnam's territorial waters. In recent years, there has been several clashes between their navies resulting in Vietnamese deaths, but Vietnam does not retaliate. Vietnam appears to be the only country which remains to be persistent in its claims; the reason is that exploiting resources from the SCS has given a huge boost to its economy. Philippines, which was very vocal, has also back down, and in return received Chinese investments.
If relationship between the two communist countries continue to be poor, I wouldn't expect Vietnamese pork to resume exports to China.
Japfa investors should write-off its pork business in Vietnam, and focus on the performance of its chicken and milk segments, which are after all its largest segments.