TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s Consumers’ Foundation was called the “People’s Republic of China’s Consumers’ Foundation” on Friday (Aug. 19) after criticizing the government for its supposedly anti-China policies.

The foundation produced a 13-page press release that described tests it made on locally farmed grouper fish, aka "democracy fish." China had banned the import of grouper fish in mid-June claiming they were farmed using banned chemicals and citing excessive levels of oxytetracycline.

The foundation’s report confirmed Friday that no traces of banned agricultural drugs were found in the grouper samples. Even so, the foundation went on to attack the government for creating a “spiral of hostility across the Taiwan Strait,” per a China Times report.

The foundation said the government had wrongly tested Taiwan’s grouper fish itself rather than use an independent source. It also accused the government and its agriculture ministers of covering up fish mismanagement and export permit problems.

Furthermore, it directly attacked Council of Agriculture (COA) Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) for “always opposing China.” In response, Chen said that he welcomed the foundation’s grouper fish test findings but could not accept its vitriol.

He added that most Taiwanese would be shocked to learn the foundation was set up to protect the interests of the nation’s people. Maybe, Chen added, the foundation could be more accurately described as the “People’s Republic of China’s Consumers’ Foundation.”

COA figures suggest there are more than 1,000 grouper farms in Taiwan, with an annual output of about 20,000 tons. After China’s customs administration banned grouper fish imports on June 13 they were called “democracy fish.”

This referred to the alleged politicized nature of China’s bans on Taiwan’s agricultural products, such as pineapples, now known as “freedom pineapples.”