Faced with domestic concerns about the safety of US beef and pressure from Washington on US beef imports, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) held a closed-door meeting on Friday night with Cabinet officials and explored ways to resolve the matter.
However, the three-hour meeting failed to yield a new strategy. Presidential Office spokesman Fan Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) said the president reiterated the government’s neutral stance on handling the US beef import issue, saying there was no timetable and no presumptions, adding that the government would respect professional opinions from experts while making public health a top priority.
For analysts, the Ma administration’s indecisiveness shows its political opportunism in handling the issue, which could have serious consequences if the government fails to resolve the disputes in a timely manner.
Political critic Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒) of National Dong Hwa University said the Ma administration underestimated public concerns over the health risk of the feed additive used in US beef when it promised Washington to resolve the issue soon, and any attempts to prove that ractopamine posed no harm to the human body would fail as the issue carried political implications.
“Politics and diplomacy are involved in the US beef import issue. Handling such a delicate issue is a great challenge for Ma and he and the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] will pay a price if he ignores domestic opposition against the importation of US beef and succumbs to US pressure,” he said.
Washington has been pressing Taipei to relax its ban on imported meat containing ractopamine residue, which was imposed in 2006. The US extended the suspension of talks under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) between the two sides after Taiwan blocked shipments of US beef containing residue of the lean-meat enhancing additive last year.
Soon after his re-election in -January, Ma sat down with -American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt in Taipei and promised that the new Cabinet would address the US beef import issue after re-assuming office last month.
The meeting sparked speculation about the government’s attempt to ease its ractopamine residue ban as a result of US pressure, especially as Taiwan seeks to proceed with the TIFA talks with the US while seeking to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The postponement of a visit to Taipei by US Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sanchez, who was -scheduled to arrive yesterday, is said to be a latest move from the US to put more pressure on the Ma administration to address the matter.
Facing mounting concerns about the health risks of the feed additive, KMT legislators joined the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in opposing the imports of US beef.
Even former Department of Health minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) said it was unlikely that the expert meeting on the effect of ractopamine on the human body could reach a conclusion and it would be “unwise” for Ma if he succumbed to US pressure and forcefully lifted the ban on the use of ractopamine in meat products.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS