Since the news broke that melamine-tainted products from China have compromised food safety in Taiwan, many people worry each time they sit down to breakfast, lunch or dinner that they will ingest melamine. Even a small amount of the chemical from a liquid creamer or a sip of milk tea can eventually lead to kidney stones.
However, a more worrying question is how many of the products on store shelves meet safety standards. The public was shocked when the Department of Health changed the standard for melamine from zero parts per million (ppm) to 2.5ppm. The change was made because detection instruments cannot detect levels down to zero ppm and because the department is only responsible for defining tolerable intake of “food additives.”
Apart from the change in inspection standards, which upset the public, the government failed to take any precautions. Our government thinks that the free trade promoted by our membership in the WTO will create a strong economy, with products from all over the world freely entering Taiwan, including products from China. This mindset makes for a sloppy and negligent government.
Within Taiwan, there is a food tracing system for all local agricultural products, providing information about production and processing. If consumers find a problem with a product, they can trace it to find the source. How can the government allow imports of food from other countries without verifying their source of origin and keeping tabs on where they end up in Taiwan? If our only checkpoint for imports cannot be managed properly, we can hardly expect the government to deal with problems discovered after they have been distributed.
In order to protect public health and ensure fair trade, the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization established the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 1962. In particular, to ensure health and food safety, the commission has developed a series of labeling regulations for food products since 1993 to declare ingredients and processing information. In addition, each country sets its own regulations.
Because these rules involve fair trade, the WTO also created the Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, which is aimed at providing guidelines for food products.
Taiwan was pleased to join the WTO, an organization that believes that free trade can improve the economy. However, some members of the WTO can be hypocritical, seeking channels to block imports from other countries with tariffs. As a result, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) was established to ensure that regulations and standards do not create unnecessary obstacles to imports from other countries.
Advanced countries like members of the EU often require that controversial imported products such as genetically modified food that may have negative effects on health, have clear labels. The requirement is strict enough to constitute an alternative to tariffs and is thus a TBT. All disputes are handled by arbitration and inspections carried out by a TBT committee, as are products suspected or proven to have detrimental effects on humans.
While international organizations implemented regulations to protect consumer health long ago, Taiwanese companies had to pull contaminated foods from shelves last month. The government’s wishy-washy policies have thus increased costs, left consumers at a loss and endangered public health. Although Taiwan is a member of the WTO, we are not yet acting in accordance with international inspection regulations.
Wu Pei-ying is a professor of agricultural economics at National Taiwan University
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS