The House Agriculture Committee held a hearing today on "The Danger China Poses to American Agriculture," with testimony from both government and private sector witnesses.

At a U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee hearing today, several Senators and witnesses discussed the issue of Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland, noting that the data was clear that this type of investment was fairly limited at the moment (0.03% of all U.S. agricultural land), but nonetheless

In recent weeks, China's customs agency released sanitary requirements for fruit imports from Benin, Venezuela, Cambodia, and Zambia, as follow-ups to recent high-level meetings with the leaders of those countries.

Today, China's Customs agency announced that it would suspend mango imports from Taiwan, citing pest concerns. This is the same justification previously offered by Beijing for bans on Taiwanese sugar apples and wax apples, although the ban on sugar apples has been lifted.

The spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, Zhu Fenglian, said last week that her agency supports the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) investigation of Taiwanese trade barriers, with the potential result of the investigation being the suspension of preferential tariff treatment for some Taiwanese imports. In response

China's trade with Africa grew by 20 times over the past two decades, according to data released by the Chinese government. And over the weekend, 120 projects amounting to $10.3 billion in value were signed at the third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. In addition, sanitary and

Beijing announced today that it will resume imports of sugar apples from Taiwan. This is a mini-step toward the thawing of economic relations across the strait, although trade frictions over agricultural goods are broader and will require more time and effort to resolve.