TAIPEI, Taiwan — A recent Chinese Communist military exercise around Taiwan has raised the specter of a blockade to subjugate the island democracy through starvation and the loss of other vital resources.
“Yes, this is a potential scenario,” Taiwan’s Agriculture Council Deputy Minister Junne-Jih Chen told reporters. “We have increased our food supply, and we have planned for food substitution.”
Chen implied that Taiwan would request rapid deliveries of food shipments from abroad if a military crisis appeared imminent. The supplies of food for humans has similar logistical vulnerabilities. “As an island nation, food supply depends on international trade and is regarded as dangerous,” the Taipei-based Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific Region warned in 2020. “In 2018, Taiwan’s food self-sufficiency in terms of calories basis was only 35 percent.”
The agriculture ministry officials noted that more than a quarter of Taiwan’s food imports come from countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership while more than 30% of Taiwan’s food exports are sold in the bloc. The exports are “tropical fruits, fishery products, flowers, etc.,” according to the agency, while Taiwan depends on those countries to supply “palm oil, soybeans, wheat, kiwi, beef, etc.”
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