China's rising rejections of imported food were noted by this blog in 2025. This year rejections have risen again, reflecting mainly the rising appetite for seafood and meat. Detection of GMOs from unexpected sources is another interesting theme.
In August 2026, Chinese customs rejected 753 imported food shipments with a volume of 10,795 metric tons. The number of shipments was the largest rejected since the customs administration took over border inspections in 2018 and the volume was the second largest after May's 15,594 metric tons.
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| Compiled from China Customs Administration web site. |
While rejections fluctuate from month to month, they have been clearly on a rising trend since 2023. A year ago, in August 2025, inspectors rejected 617 shipments with a volume of 8122 metric tons.
China has rejected food shipments from more than 80 countries in the first 8 months of 2026. As discussed here last month, rejections of shrimp from Ecuador stand out as this year's top rejected food item with 991 shipments rejected in 8 months. During August, rejections of Ecuadorian shrimp reached a record of 268 shipments totaling 4,126 metric tons in August.
The second-leading source of rejections was the United States, with 452 shipments rejected in 8 months. More than half of U.S. rejections were comprised of chicken paws, most often rejected for detection of an antibiotic (furacilin). The 373 rejections of food from Brazil were composed predominantly of beef and chicken rejected for a variety of reasons. There were 272 rejections from 14 European Union countries that included pork, dairy, and various processed foods and beverages. The most commonly foods from Russia rejected included chicken and rapeseed oil.
By far, seafood is the largest component of China's food rejections, with 1800 shipments rejected this year. In addition to Ecuador's shrimp China rejected "South American shrimp" from other countries distant from the continent, including Malaysia, Thailand, India, Myanmar, and Saudi Arabia. Other types of shrimp are rejected from New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam. Reasons for rejection are predominantly "animal disease" excessive sulfites. Many other types of fish and shellfish are rejected, with Atlantic salmon from Norway Greenland, and Chile with parasites and other problems being most numerous. Other species include lobster from Venezuela with excessive nitrogen, crabs from Oman with cadmium, bass from Indonesia, halibut from Greenland, and butterfish from India.
We have also noted rising rejections of imported meat on this blog. During 2025 there was a broad-based increase in rejections of meat imports. This year rejections of beef from Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and the United States are most common. Rejections of chicken from the U.S., Russia, Belarus, and Brazil have also been numerous.
This blog has also observed China's rejections of various foods for detection of genetically modified material. The two most prominent examples continued in August with 8 shipments of Russian rapeseed oil and 5 shipments of Indian rice rejected for detection of genetically modified material. China has also detected GM material in soybean products from Taiwan and flour from Japan. None of these countries officially permit growing GM crops.
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