• Taiwan threatens to take China to the World Trade Organization.
• China has suspended imports of grouper fish from Taiwan.
• It is the latest agricultural spat between the two over pests and Taiwan’s pineapples.
• Taipei and Beijing’s relations are at their lowest in decades.

Taiwan’s administration took steps to take Beijing to the World Trade Organization on Saturday after China suspended the import of grouper fish from the island saying it had identified prohibited synthetic compounds, the most recent horticultural disagreement between the two.

Last year China suspended imports of pineapples, sugar apples, and wax apples from Taiwan, referring to worries about bugs, which Taiwan firmly denied.

Relations between Taipei and Beijing, which guarantees equitably controlled Taiwan similar to claim an area, are at their most reduced in many years, with China expanding political and military strain to get the island to acknowledge its power.

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China’s traditions organization said late Friday it had more than once recognized prohibited synthetic substances in grouper from Taiwan and would suspend their import from Monday “to forestall endangers and safeguard the wellbeing and lives of purchasers”.

Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung excused the allegation, saying nothing bad could be said about the fish and they would give information to China and solicitation a reaction from them.

In the event that China doesn’t answer then Taiwan won’t preclude taking the issue to the WTO, he told correspondents.

Bureau representative Lo Ping-cheng said that China has been over and over boycotting and hindering Taiwanese rural and sea-going items “in a way conflicting with global practices”.

This damages relation between Taiwan and China “yet, in addition, makes the Taiwanese public considerably more nauseated by the Chinese Communist Party specialists’ wanton concealment of Taiwan”.

While most Taiwanese grouper is consumed at home, China represents some 90% of the traded item.