You probably missed China's latest exercise of food power involving shrimp from Ecuador. President Daniel Noboa went to China in August and was rewarded with restoration of 8 Ecuadorian shrimp exporters that China had suspended earlier. The events leading up to Noboa's visit outline an emerging pattern: China creates a large export market for a trading partner, sets novel approval procedures or standards to manage the flow of imports, and China rejects products or suspends exporters when Chinese leaders want to gain power over their trading partner.
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| China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlighted Ecuador President Neboa's visit to China August 2026. |
Over the past decade shrimp quietly became Ecuador's top export after petroleum, and China accounted for about half of the South American country's shrimp exports in 2025. China's annual imports of shrimp from Ecuador exceeded $3 billion during 2022-25, up spectacularly from about $100,000 in 2017.
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| China customs statistics. |
Surging imports of food products in China tend to run into trouble, and meteoric growth in Ecuador's shrimp trade was knee-capped by Chinese customs inspectors despite a 2023 China-Ecuador free trade agreement that should have stimulated even more growth. Rejections of shrimp soared, and 14 Ecuadorian exporters were suspended over the past year. The problem peaked during the summer months of 2026.
Chinese officials restored qualifications for 8 shrimp exporters just in time for President Neboa's August trip to China (6 are still suspended). Hong Kong's South China Morning Post ("Ecuador's Noboa courts China on shrimp, copper") ascertained that shrimp topped the Ecuadorian President's agenda, and Foreign Policy's "Latin American Brief" noted that the restoration of shrimp exporters was the only concrete outcome from his China visit.
Chinese customs inspectors have been rejecting shrimp from Ecuador since the trade first ramped up in 2019. But this year's spike in rejections is literally off the chart. The 3,000-to-4,000 metric tons of "South American white-legged shrimp" from Ecuador rejected each month during May-July 2026 far exceed past rejections and make earlier spikes in rejections during May-July 2024 and August 2025 look small in comparison.
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| Compiled from China Customs Administration. |
This blog has previously discussed the 8-year history of Ecuadorian shrimp rejections. No other food item has been rejected so often or so consistently. Here's a rundown:
- In August 2019--soon after trade began to boom--Chinese customs began rejecting Ecuadorian shrimp for diseases. In September 2019 a Chinese industry site reported that Chinese and Ecuadorian officials had already been engaged in dialogue to resolve sanitary issues. The article said wholesalers in China viewed the risk of rejected shipments as excessive.
- Beginning July 2020, Chinese officials claimed to have discovered traces of Covid-19 virus on packaging and containers of Ecuadorian shrimp, seemingly supporting China's dubious claim that Covid-19 entered China on imported frozen food. Special procedures for Ecuadorian shrimp imports were announced. Trade continued, though, and customs rejected shipments monthly -- rejections were attributed to "animal disease detected" on customs reports.
- The narrative about covid virus on imported frozen food and special fumigations and segregations of shrimp and other imported food vanished at the end of 2022, but rejections for "animal disease" continued.
- In 2022, customs officials began to cite residues of sulfur dioxide in addition to "animal disease" for rejections.
- Rejections of shrimp briefly ceased during early 2024 as the Ecuador FTA was about to go into effect. The lull was interrupted by a Chinese food activist's assertion that Ecuadorian shrimp had high levels of metabisulfite. A spike in rejections for metabisulfite followed in mid-2024.
- Closer scrutiny of metabisulfite was cited by Chinese commentators for an uptick in shrimp rejections that began in 2025.
- China suspended 14 exporting plants in Ecuador between October 2025 and mid-2026--including 7 suspended in June 2026--and restored authorization for 8 plants on August 14. Six are still suspended.
A January 2026 article on a Chinese frozen food industry site pronounced a "chemical storm" facing Ecuador's shrimp industry over spot checks of imported shrimp for "misuse" of sulfites as a preservative to prevent oxidation, discoloration, and to extend shelf life. That author blamed "some processing plants" in Ecuador for "excessive soaking," and he claimed that Chinese importers were no longer willing to tolerate the risk of rejection for residues exceeding limits.
A July 2026 Chinese industry article revealed that the spike in rejections was due to a new testing approach adopted by Chinese customs inspectors. An Ecuadorian company official told the Chinese journalist that the internationally accepted method tests only the meat of the shrimp for sodium metabisulfite residues, but Chinese inspectors are now including the shells and heads of shrimp in testing, which increases the likelihood of a rejection.
The journalist quoted a Chinese importer who insisted that a different testing method was appropriate because Chinese consumers might possibly eat the heads and shells. Moreover, inspectors at 2 of China's ports were using the new testing approach, so this constitutes an alignment with "domestic standards." The importer advised Ecuadorian processors to reduce their international controls for metabisulfite tolerance that is less than China's limit. Exporters whose products failed to meet requirements were advised that they must identify the reasons for the failure and submit a report to China Customs detailing rectifications made before they can resume shipments.
A commentary posted on multiple Chinese web sites on the first day of the Ecuadorian president's trip to China reported that Chinese authorities had restored export qualification for 8 Ecuadorian shrimp facilities in the week before President Noboa's arrival. The article insisted that Chinese consumers will not lower their food safety standards simply because an exporter is heavily dependent on the Chinese market and advising Ecuadorian companies that they have no choice but to adapt to China's standards. The author and original source of this commentary were not revealed but the level of detail suggests it came from a Chinese government source.
Outside China, coverage of the restoration of the Ecuadorian shrimp exporters was reported factually on obscure seafood industry sites. Reports for a Chinese audience had a geopolitical slant. The unsigned commentary was titled "The first order of business for the President of Ecuador was discussing shrimp" with the phrase "No time for the United States" appended to the title. The article was for Chinese readers, but it advised Ecuador to prioritize trouble-shooting its largest overseas market (i.e. China) over cooperation with the U.S. in combating transnational crime and drug trafficking. The commentary put Ecuador in its place with this comment: "Major powers can use their markets as bargaining chips while smaller nations often have to treat their markets simply as a source of livelihood."
The April 2026 article proclaiming a "chemical storm" opined that Ecuador's regulators should tighten up to accommodate China's growing demand for quality and safety in food.
(These articles were in Chinese and presumably not read in Ecuador.)
China calls its food safety standards "the strictest ever." In practice, however, the standards are often impossible to fully enforce in its domestic market. But they are enforced with varying degrees of strictness for imports.
On the surface, China's rejections of imported food appear to reflect rising food safety standards in the country. However, nothing is ever what it appears to be in China, and there are ulterior motives: to deflect attention from chronic domestic food safety problems, to slow down surging imports, to undermine Western dominance in global rules for food trade, or to reward fealty and punish criticism.
Interestingly, the indignant Chinese accusations of Ecuadorian processors using bisulfites as preservatives and the spike in shrimp rejections were sandwiched between two similar domestic scandals. A March Chinese TV broadcast revealed that Chinese companies bleached chicken feet, and a week after President Neboa's China visit a Chinese vlogger revealed that cabbage is routinely soaked in formaldehyde.
China can intermittently enforce strict standards when authorities need to slow down imports or achieve other geopolitical objectives. China has known about problems with Ecuadorian shrimp since 2019 and let them slide until the last two years. A May 2026 Chinese seafood industry article attributed this year's surging rejections of Ecuadorian shrimp to a surge of low-quality shipments that was considered excessive. Prices for Chinese fish farmers have been falling this year, in part due to the end of a regional fishing ban this year.
Similarly, it was unclear whether a spike in rejections of meat during 2025 reflected an actual increase in problems or reflected stricter inspections as part of an initiative to protect China's domestic beef industry.
China bristles against U.S. dominance of international standard setting and tries to set its own standards and procedures that deviate from Codex Alimentarius or common practice--such as testing shells and heads of shrimp that few people eat. A number of years ago China overhauled its infant formula standards and claimed that Chinese infants had different nutritional needs that justified unique tolerances for whey protein, lactose, vitamins and other nutrients. Foreign suppliers were ordered to adjust their formulas accordingly and submit them to Chinese regulators. There have been instances when Chinese inspectors discovered a banned substance that inspectors in the exporting country had not found in their own testing--differences in testing procedures were suspected.
China also famously uses food as a reward or punishment. From 2017 to 2019 China tolerated occasional rejections of Australian beef until Australia requested an investigation of the origins of covid in 2020. Then China suspended 10 Australian beef exporters for 2 years, apparently as punishment for Australia. They were restored after a change in government in Australia.
China likes to use food to show who's boss. Very similar to President Neboa's reward, Brazilian President Lula da Silva was rewarded in 2025 with restoration of 5 suspended Brazilian soybean exporters during his visit to Beijing. However, Chinese customs officials continued to complain about foreign material in Brazilian soybean shipments. In March 2026, Brazilian officials hopped on a plane to consult with Chinese officials about how they could satisfy Chinese concerns just as the Brazilian soybean shipping season was peaking.
China's use of a novel testing method for shrimp shells and its assertion that an exception must be made for unique Chinese consumption habits also fits an established pattern. Years ago, in consultations with the U.S., Chinese officials refused to accept the Codex Alimentarius maximum residue level for ractopamine in pork or beef. Instead, China lumps ractopamine with other beta agonists clenbuterol and salbutamol and bans them all. At one time Chinese authorities told U.S. counterparts they could not approve ractopamine in China because the substance accumulates in the lungs of pigs--even though lungs were not exported from the U.S. to China, so there was no actual risk to Chinese consumers.
Trading partners must no be complacent about surging growth in food exports to China. China does not allow food imports to grow without preserving some means to restrain the growth as needed. While Chinese leaders claim that food imports are meeting demands of Chinese consumers, they also view food trade as a tool that can be manipulated to achieve other objectives or just to show who's boss.
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