Beijing’s sudden hunger for custard apples has sent tremors through Taipei, and not because of a sudden shortage of the creamy delicacy. No, the People’s Republic, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to resume imports of Taiwanese fruit after a two-year ban, ostensibly to ‘improve cross-strait relations’. But let us not be naïve.
This is the same China that weaponised fruit imports in 2021, banning Taiwanese pineapples, sugar apples, and custard apples under the flimsy pretext of pest control. Now, as Taiwan’s farmers nervously watch the launch of a new ‘custard apple season’, the UK has gallantly stepped in to reaffirm the island’s ‘right to participate in trade as a separate customs territory’. The British government, never one to miss a chance to posture, issued a statement supporting Taiwan’s ‘meaningful participation’ in global food security discussions.
How noble. How utterly detached from reality. The truth is that Taiwan’s food security is tied not to custard apples but to its geopolitical limbo.
Every fruit shipment is a pawn in Xi Jinping’s grand strategy of coercion. The UK’s support, while morally satisfying, is about as effective as a paper umbrella in a typhoon. Meanwhile, the farmers of Taitung can only hope that Beijing’s appetite for custard apples is genuine, and not merely a prelude to another embargo.
This is not about fruit. It is about sovereignty, and the West’s Sisyphean attempt to pretend that the rules of the liberal order still apply in a world of hereditary empires and strategic fruit bowls.