Mainland slips on fishy plan to
boost cross-strait business By
Jens Kastner
TAIPEI - Milkfish, or
Chanos chanos, was chosen by the
governments in Beijing and Taipei to make a
historic mark on cross-strait relations. Produced
in Taiwan's economically disadvantaged south to be
sold in the mainland's first-tier cities, the
one-meter-long delicacy was meant to build bridges
of friendship.
Unfortunately, the
political cast appears not to have a clue as to
what mainland palates are after. The delicacy's
light and and fluffy
texture, treasured in Taiwan,
is is being shunned by consumers in Beijing and
Shanghai, leading the carcasses to pass their
sell-by dates in supermarkets. Shipping goes on
nonetheless.
Milkfish is rich in omega-3
fatty acid, has a lot of protein and is easily
digestible. It has secured a strong foothold in
the cuisines of Southeast Asia and Taiwan over
hundreds of years, but is virtually unknown to
mainland China.
This was meant to change
after Beijing, as part of an initiative to win
hearts and minds in traditionally mainland-wary
southern Taiwan, began purchasing milkfish from
the farming community of Syuejia last year.
The villagers were given a generous
guarantee purchase price by the Chinese, an order
worth NT$135 million (US$4.57 million) was placed,
and the first shipment of 24 tonnes of milkfish
crossed the Taiwan Strait on August 25. It did so
without tariffs, as milkfish, unprocessed and
whole or as frozen fillets, is on the "early
harvest" list of tariff-free items set out under
the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement
(ECFA) Taipei and Beijing signed in 2010.
Among political scientists, it is
contested whether the deal has met its ends.
Taiwan's Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) emerged
as the winner in the presidential and legislative
elections held in mid-January, but the electoral
district where the mainland buyers purchased the
milkfish seemingly stuck to voting for the
opposition anti-unification Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP).
From a trader's perspective,
by contrast, the outcome of the whole deal
couldn't be much clearer: it is a flop, as only a
small portion of what Shanghai Fisheries General
Corp, which on the mainland side brokered the
deal, ordered is believed to have ended up on
mainland dinner tables.
A closer look at
the ware reveals that this outcome is hardly
surprising.
A major turn-off to Chinese consumers is how
it's called. The first character in the milkfish's
Chinese name is "louse", the second one "eye" and
the third one "fish". To eliminate the adverse
associations mainland consumers surely harbor, the
mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), which is
the agency responsible for cross-strait policies,
together with Shanghai Fisheries, thought up the
name "champion fish", a move that has failed to do
the trick.
Milkfish comes with an enormous number of
bones - a total of between 196 and 208. Milkfish
is popular in the Philippines, where its called
Bangus, and indicating how difficult it is to get
the bones out, there are dozens of Filipino web
sites dealing with the issue. Whoever intends
buying a milkfish will likely change his or her
mind after reading blog entries like "How to
Debone Bangus":
Make a shallow slit along the dent
between the muscle segments of the ventral side
and mid-portion of the body to the tip of the
muscle in the tail. The spines on the tail
portion are very much attached to the muscle
tendon, making it difficult to remove. For
training and seminars, contact: [etc]
It has a distinctive taste that somewhat
reminds of moldy soil.
Du Yu, chief
executive officer of the Chen-Li Task Force for
Agricultural Reform, got further into the meat of
what is wrong with the cross-strait milkfish deal
in an interview with Asia Times Online.
Du, who has done extensive research on the
issue, said that to show goodwill to the
Taiwanese, the mainland initially carried out
emergency procurements of agricultural products
during gluts.
"But as there were too many
intermediaries involved, the farmers didn't earn,
and packaging and shipment had to be done in a
hurry," he said. "All this haste meant fish
entered the [mainland] Chinese market without
grading, in turn damaging the reputation of
Taiwanese farming products on the whole."
Then, more research done, regular supply
contracts were arranged, such as the ones agreed
with Syuejia's milkfish producers, Du said.
"However, for the milkfish this didn't
really work, either. Price fluctuations on the
Chinese market mess up sales, procurements,
shipping amount and timing, which in turn makes
the quality suffer and eventually leads to trade
conflicts."
In Du's eyes, the Taiwanese
government failed to use its brains on the issue.
According to him, there was no consumer marketing
research before the milkfish were thrown into
mainland supermarkets, nor were sophisticated
promotion campaigns, of the sort Norway deploys to
support its salmon exports, put in motion.
Norway runs an office in Hong Kong that,
together with its embassy in Beijing, promotes its
salmon sales to mainland China by engaging upscale
restaurants there along with celebrity chefs,
among other high-profile measures.
The
government in Beijing has so far absorbed the
financial losses the cross-strait milkfish deal
brings about and is expected to continue doing so
at least in the short term to woo the Taiwanese,
Du believes.
But a brutal crash course in
political risk the Norwegians underwent with their
mainland salmon venture could be a lesson to
Taiwan's policymakers and milkfish producers.
After Norway's Nobel Committee awarded its
2010 peace prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu
Xiaobo, a furious Beijing imposed retaliatory
measures, causing imports of Norwegian salmon to
drop by 70% during the first four months of 2011.
To spare Taiwan's milkfish producers from
such possible turns and twists, the government in
Taipei should open international markets and do
something for production and the distribution
network in Taiwan, where 80% of the domestically
produced milkfish is sold, Du said. The rest is up
to Taiwan's biotech sector, Du said.
"Biotech research and development should
address the milkfish's two major problems: the
many small bones and the earthy flavor."
Jens Kastner is a Taipei-based
journalist.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times
Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
