Taipei has accused China of smuggling vegetables into Taiwan via Vietnam in a bid to evade import restrictions, with officials vowing to crack down on a practice they say amounts to “origin washing”. Taiwan, which bans the importation of more than 1,000 Chinese agricultural and fishery products, said firms in China were evading restrictions by rerouting vegetables like Napa cabbage and shiitake mushrooms through neighbouring Vietnam. The items, officials claimed, are then repackaged as Vietnamese goods and imported into Taiwan. Taiwan’s agriculture minister Chen Junne-jih told lawmakers at a legislative meeting on Wednesday that his ministry is adopting measures to combat origin laundering, including imposing strict penalties on violators. Chen also said his ministry would “carry out aerial surveys in Vietnam” in order to map out how much produce could feasibly originate from certain areas. “If the volume exported to Taiwan exceeds that, there should be a mechanism to address it,” he said.…