China asks US to revoke seafood ban

Beijing: China wants the United States to quickly revoke the "indiscriminate" ban on four kinds of seafood exports quickly and properly deal with the problem.

According to the director of the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, Li Changjiang, China will not accept the indiscriminate and automatic detention of four kinds of Chinese seafood by the United States and the ban on importing those products."

Li made the remarks during a telephone conversation with US Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, urging him to deal with the issue after Washington announced the ban some Chinese seafood Thursday.

Li said China also detected many substandard foodstuffs among US exports to China every year, and these problems were properly handled in the principle of cooperation.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Thursday it would detain three types of Chinese farm-raised fish -- catfish, basa and dace -- as well as shrimp and eel unless suppliers could prove the shipments contained no harmful residues unapproved in the US for use in farmed seafood.