Taiwan will never be allowed into the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement until it removes restrictions on the import of US beef and pork, a conference on US-Taiwan relations was told on Friday.
“It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of agricultural issues, especially beef and pork, to [US] Congressional House and Senate attitudes about the TPP,” analyst Chris Nelson said.
A former Congress staff member with decades of experience on US-Taiwan issues, Nelson said that until the US agricultural community had signed off on the TPP, “it ain’t going to happen.”
If the agricultural community does not get what it wants from Taiwan on the beef and pork issues, he said, Taiwan would not gain entrance to the TPP.
“If Taiwan wants to get into TPP and it is still screwing around on beef and pork, it is not going to meet the basic qualification and be taken seriously,” Nelson said.
Asked if a solution to the beef and pork issue was a prerequisite to gaining US support for Taiwanese entry to the TPP in a second round of negotiations that could start later this year, former Congressional Research Service specialist in Asian security affairs Shirley Kan said: “The fact that you even have to ask this question just astonishes me.”
“This is serious,” she said. “Are you in denial?”
“We have heard all the arguments and excuses from Taiwan,” she said. “How they can’t do a thing, because elections are coming up. Well, there are no elections this year in Taiwan. Let’s not waste this year. If people are serious, this is the window of opportunity. Whether you use it or not is up to you.”
She said that Taiwan had a lot of work to do to restore trust as a reliable economic partner that relied on scientific and international standards.
“Taiwan has to — by itself, today — remove the remaining obstacles concerning beef and pork,” she said.
Kan said that, if this was not done, people might look back in years to come and say that Taipei had committed a strategic blunder.
“Will Taiwan let this opportunity go?” she asked.
Kan said that it was ironic that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could not forge a domestic political consensus for the benefit of the country.
“Where is the leadership in the KMT and the DPP?” she asked.
Taiwan is struggling to gain US support for membership in the TPP, which could be of enormous benefit to Taiwan’s economy.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS