Did the US-China trade war start with a court case about Chinese garlic?

A Chinese immigrant to the United States has become a key player in a trade dispute that is pitting industry powerhouses in his native China and the US against small farmers trying to make a living out of growing garlic.

When Xu Mingju moved to the US in 1999 he was hoping to carve out a career in medical research. Instead, 20 years later, he has become involved in complex international litigation which has seen him accused of racketeering – a charge usually reserved for mobsters.

At a perilous time for US-China trade relations, the case – which includes accusations of large-scale international bribery, back room deals to flout US law, and the use of prison labour to slash costs – presents an intriguing view of a Chinese exporter engaging in open commercial warfare on US turf, with small US and Chinese farmers caught in the middle.

Xu, a professor of sociology with 15 years’ experience at Lanzhou University in northwest China, was working as a research assistant at the prestigious Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York when his world turned upside down soon after the 9/11 attacks.

“I lost my job, because the US government reduced the funding for research. My English was not good enough to teach. I could only do the research. In China I could teach, but in China my English was only good enough to be a research assistant,” he told the South China Morning Post.

Garlic trading was a natural next step for Xu, who comes from Jinxiang county in the eastern province of Shandong – heart of the world’s largest garlic growing region. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, it produced 80 per cent of the world’s total yield in 2017.