Senior Chinese trade officials warned of another trade skirmish if Japan fails to knock down barriers to vegetable imports, the China Daily reported Friday.
The officials stressed that Chinese vegetables are safe and of high quality. However, they did not refer to any immediate plans to launch retaliatory trade sanctions.
China strongly opposes Japan's "unfair and discriminatory inspections" of its vegetable exports, said Guo Li, assistant minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation. China hopes Japan will immediately curtail its unfair measures to avoid a repetition of last year's trade dispute, she said, while other officials criticized the Japanese media's "one sided" reporting of the issue.
While Japanese customs inspected Chinese vegetables 7,001 times in the first seven months of the year, only 0.5 percent were found to contain pesticide residue higher than Japanese standards, the officials said.