CHINA has urged Japan to abandon tough new food standards that threaten to hinder imports of Chinese vegetables. China’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection argued Friday that Japan’s decision to strengthen standards for permissible levels of pesticide residues on vegetable imports exceeded international standards. Japan tightened quarantine and inspection standards for vegetable products after a pesticide scare prompted a ban in July of frozen spinach imports from China.Foreign trade ministry Deputy Director Jiang Fan accused Japan of enacting laws to discriminate against China, as up to 99 percent of the vegetable imports targeted by the tougher standards are grown by Chinese farmers. She also warned Japan’s decision to use technical barriers as a disguise for trade protectionism threatened Japanese investment in China’s agricultural industry. “These measures have gone beyond the normal requirements and are obviously discriminatory against Chinese products” Jiang told reporters. “The measures taken by the Japanese side can seriously impair the healthy development of bilateral trade.” Trade, agriculture, health and quarantine officials also mounted a staunch defense of China’s health and food quality standards during an hour-long briefing in Beijing. However, the officials stopped short of calling for retaliatory action against Japan unless the more stringent health standards are relaxed to the lower internationally-accepted level. Last year, China imposed special tariffs on imports of air conditioners, autos and telephone handsets from Japan in retaliation for Japan’s decision to impose safeguard tariffs on spring onions, shiitake mushrooms and reeds used to make tatami mats, most of which are sourced from Chinese farms. But similar action hasn’t been threatened in the latest trade row between the countries, which last year had a total trade volume of US$87.8 billion. The latest trade row follows a July directive by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor instructing food importers to refrain from importing frozen spinach from China due to higher-than-permitted levels of pesticide residue. The ministry made the decision after 42 cases of frozen spinach imports were found to contain high pesticide residue levels between March and July. But Chinese officials argued that these isolated cases had been dealt with and that the overall standard of Chinese products remains within internationally accepted levels. <2001>(SD-Agencies)