A food-safety scare in China is raising fears in Taiwan that tainted cabbage could slip in under a fake country-of-origin label — bad news for shoppers and for local vegetable farmers.

• Buyers in China's Hebei province were caught soaking Napa cabbage in formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing chemical, to keep it looking fresh.
• Chinese cabbage is banned from Taiwan, but the profits are big enough that shipments could be routed through Vietnam with false paperwork — a fake origin certificate reportedly costs little compared to the payoff.
• Import numbers look odd: cabbage arriving from Vietnam has jumped several times over since 2017, and local prices crashed this spring even though the domestic harvest was below normal.
• Taipei city council candidate Wu Hsin-tai says the Agriculture Ministry promised an origin-tracing database four months ago and has shown nothing since.
• The demands: test specifically for formaldehyde rather than just pesticides, publish inspection results, check processed products like kimchi and frozen cabbage, and name importers caught faking labels.

Outlook: Pressure is on regulators to add formaldehyde to routine testing and publish recent Vietnamese cabbage inspection data, or face accusations of covering for laundered imports.