Source: Global Times - Global Network
With the promulgation and implementation of the "Biosecurity Law of the People's Republic of China", biosecurity has been included in the scope of national security. The General Administration of Customs unswervingly implements the spirit of the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping, persistently and consistently implements the overall national security concept, resolutely builds a quarantine defense line at ports, strictly prevents the epidemic of animals and plants abroad and the introduction of alien species, goes all out to crack down on the smuggling of endangered species, and contributes to the protection of biodiversity. In 2020, the national customs intercepted a total of 384 species of quarantine pests and 69,500 species, and intercepted 1,258 species of alien species and 4,270 batches, effectively maintaining the biosecurity of the country.
Build three lines of defense: "offshore, port, and domestic"
The General Administration of Customs has always adhered to the quarantine prevention and control of animals and plants at the ports of the whole chain, and has established a defense system of nine specific measures from quarantine access, to overseas pre-inspection, to quarantine approval, to port inspection, to laboratory testing, to quarantine treatment, to isolation and quarantine, to fixed-point processing, and then to epidemic monitoring, to do a solid job in the quarantine of animals and plants entering and leaving the country, maintaining the defense line and barrier of national biosecurity, and building a solid national biosecurity network.
Customs throughout the country has continuously improved the joint prevention and control mechanism, applied advanced technologies and equipment such as intelligent inspection, sampling, quarantine treatment and remote identification, established a rapid response mechanism for foreign harmful organisms, through big data analysis, do a good job of forward-looking risk early warning and real-time prevention and control, and promote customs to establish a long-term cooperation mechanism with agriculture, forestry, grassland, ecological environment and other departments, and jointly do a good job in the prevention and control of major animal and plant epidemic diseases such as desert locusts, African swine fever, and highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Since 2020, the desert locust plague has spread rapidly from East Africa to the Middle East and several neighboring countries of China, reaching China's southwest border and posing a threat to China's ecological security and food security. In accordance with the unified deployment of desert locust prevention and control, Shanghai, Lhasa and other customs have strengthened the quarantine of means of transport and goods entering the desert locust epidemic area, intercepted desert locusts in the inbound means of transport for many times, and promptly adopted insect control treatment to effectively prevent the introduction of desert locusts; in September, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport Customs and Panyu Customs, which belong to Guangzhou Customs, carried out sampling tests on 6 batches of vegetable seeds entering the country, totaling 64 kilograms, and detected important pests - tomato brown wrinkled fruit virus, which have been returned or destroyed according to law. Since last year, the General Administration of Customs has comprehensively deployed the prevention and control work at ports of major animal and plant epidemics such as highly pathogenic avian influenza in accordance with the development situation of the global animal and plant epidemic situation and the key points of port prevention and control, and strictly prevented the superposition of the epidemic.
Pictured: Live desert locusts intercepted by Shanghai Customs from the outer packaging of imported goods
In addition to the prevention and control of animal and plant epidemic disease ports, in recent years, frequent invasions of alien species have also become the focus of customs port checks.
Pictured: Beijing Customs intercepts euphorbia longiflora in incoming mail
In September 2020, when the Dalian Zhoushuizi Airport Customs under Dalian Customs inspected the incoming express mail, it found a ticket of "toy dolls" machine inspection images showing that there were items hidden, and after on-site opening and inspection, more than 4,000 live magic flower mantis larvae and eggs were hidden in them. In addition, the customs of Beijing, Shenyang, Harbin, Shanghai, Qingdao and Guangzhou have repeatedly intercepted euphorbia inbound mail and destroyed them in accordance with the law.
Launch a series of campaigns to attack private strongholds
In recent years, combined with special operations such as "National Sword", "Hundred Days Battle", "Special Action to Combat smuggling of endangered species such as ivory and their products", and "Escort 2020", the General Administration of Customs has successively cracked a series of major and extraordinarily large smuggling cases of ivory, repatriated 4 ivory smuggling fugitives, severely damaged domestic and foreign smuggling criminal gangs, and successfully destroyed a number of online platforms for selling endangered species products such as "Dimi Grain" and "Daily Purchase Network". According to statistics, in the past three years, the anti-smuggling department of the customs has filed and investigated a total of 950 cases of smuggling endangered species, including 267 cases of smuggling ivory; 2467.7 tons of endangered species and 10.6 tons of ivory products.
Strengthen the publicity of national security law popularization
Post posters on protecting national biosecurity, refusing to carry, mail, and smuggling animals and plants and their products in places such as customs postal supervision and freight supervision; placing a series of public welfare propaganda films on the Internet, new media, and ports of entry and exit; combined with a series of announcements issued by the General Administration of Customs, in conjunction with the series of announcements issued by the General Administration of Customs, in the "Customs Release" WeChat Weibo and other new media and the portal website of the General Administration of Customs, the new city disease, African horse fever, wheat line mosaic virus, Mediterranean fruit fly, African giant snails and other invasive alien species to carry out scientific interpretation; use the "4.15" National Security Day to carry out a series of characteristic national biosecurity science publicity, continue to carry out "ten advances" activities such as national biosecurity into the campus, educate and guide the broad masses to enhance the awareness of national biosecurity, reject the bad behavior of destroying biodiversity, and achieve good social results.
The General Administration of Customs will continue to thoroughly implement the spirit of the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping, take the quarantine of animals and plants at the port as the starting point, strictly prevent the import of major animal and plant epidemic diseases, take the crackdown on the smuggling of endangered species such as ivory and their products as the top priority of the customs work, resolutely guard the biosecurity of the country, help protect biodiversity, and continue to achieve the win-win goal of ecological environmental protection and high-quality economic development.