The plasticizer scare has been both serious and far-reaching. It has not only endangered the health of domestic consumers, but it has also dealt a heavy blow to the international image of products made in Taiwan. The repercussions of this incident on the country are still hard to gauge.
Some people advocate handing out heavy penalties and severely punishing unscrupulous businesspeople to stop such things from happening. China did so when the melamine scare erupted there, sentencing the guilty to death or life in prison, while carrying out a major crackdown on the food industry. However, the melamine issue has still not been fundamentally addressed and other food safety problems keep coming up. The temptation of huge profits and a belief among manufacturers that they will get away with it has meant that heavier sentences often are less effective than expected.
Shockingly, despite clear regulations prohibiting the use of plasticizers in food processing, unscrupulous companies have been getting away with doing so for more than 20 years. If it wasn’t for a “nosy” tester who discovered the harmful plasticizer “by accident,” it is possible this substance would have continued to harm even more people. Food safety issues come from a structural problem: links between the government and business. When the relevant legislation was drawn up, punishments were light and the budget was cut, weakening monitoring processes. The average food sanitation budget for each Taiwanese is just NT$11, not even one-tenth of the almost NT$160 spent on each person in some Western nations. If this was not deliberate neglect, then it must have been a deliberate policy decision.
At the time of the five special municipality elections last year, I wrote an article about how assuring food safety could win votes. In the article, I mentioned that food-safety problems ranked second among the top 10 public complaints, but that neither the government nor the opposition cared or made it their main policy issue in an attempt to effectively monitor inferior food products.
I also cited international examples, showing how both Denmark and Sweden have put food product identification systems in place, covering the whole chain from the field to the dinner table, taking food safety to the highest level by stressing transparency and high standards.
Last year, the US passed the Food Safety Modernization Act and Japan established the Consumer Affairs Agency to strengthen management of growing, harvesting and handling food to ensure the safety of their people. Countries around the world have been strengthening food safety controls and if Taiwan’s parties want to win votes, they will have to put some of their focus on food safety.
The Swedes put a lot of trust in the Swedish National Food Administration. For half a century, the administration has paid close attention to food safety on behalf of consumers, which has allowed Swedish consumers to eat with the knowledge that what they are consuming is safe. This has also made the national food administration one of the most trusted government departments in Sweden.
The Swedish experience shows that information transparency and letting consumers and the media take part in monitoring is more effective than administrative procedures and handing out strict punishments. Publicly announcing the names of the manufacturers that break the law along with those of distributors, retailers and anyone else involved in overseeing their operation would let the whole production and distribution chain share responsibility. Consumer boycotts would then be sufficient to cause manufacturers to go bankrupt and keep harmful foods off the market.
However, because Taiwan’s government worries about the damage this would do to the image of businesses and fears it would induce panic on the market, they do not strictly carry out follow-up inspections or announce where products have ended up. For example, it is still unclear what happened to the ractopamine-tainted pork that was imported from the US in 2007. Consumers do not have the power to monitor such things. Lured by high profits, it is difficult to stop manufacturers from reintroducing their products to the market once the storm has passed.
The government is attempting to put an end to public complaints by issuing heavier sentences and resorting to populist measures to avoid having to handle the fundamental problem of links between government and business. This does not facilitate the establishment of a food safety system. Civil society and the media should review the structural problems and propose a reform plan.
With the presidential election coming up next January, I would like to call on everyone to vote for the party that makes food safety reform one of its major policy goals. This is the only way to prevent inferior products from entering the market as a result of collusion between the government and business interests.
Chien Hsi-chieh is the executive director of the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
President William Lai (賴清德) attended a dinner held by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when representatives from the group visited Taiwan in October. In a speech at the event, Lai highlighted similarities in the geopolitical challenges faced by Israel and Taiwan, saying that the two countries “stand on the front line against authoritarianism.” Lai noted how Taiwan had “immediately condemned” the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and had provided humanitarian aid. Lai was heavily criticized from some quarters for standing with AIPAC and Israel. On Nov. 4, the Taipei Times published an opinion article (“Speak out on the
Eighty-seven percent of Taiwan’s energy supply this year came from burning fossil fuels, with more than 47 percent of that from gas-fired power generation. The figures attracted international attention since they were in October published in a Reuters report, which highlighted the fragility and structural challenges of Taiwan’s energy sector, accumulated through long-standing policy choices. The nation’s overreliance on natural gas is proving unstable and inadequate. The rising use of natural gas does not project an image of a Taiwan committed to a green energy transition; rather, it seems that Taiwan is attempting to patch up structural gaps in lieu of
News about expanding security cooperation between Israel and Taiwan, including the visits of Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) in September and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) this month, as well as growing ties in areas such as missile defense and cybersecurity, should not be viewed as isolated events. The emphasis on missile defense, including Taiwan’s newly introduced T-Dome project, is simply the most visible sign of a deeper trend that has been taking shape quietly over the past two to three years. Taipei is seeking to expand security and defense cooperation with Israel, something officials
“Can you tell me where the time and motivation will come from to get students to improve their English proficiency in four years of university?” The teacher’s question — not accusatory, just slightly exasperated — was directed at the panelists at the end of a recent conference on English language learning at Taiwanese universities. Perhaps thankfully for the professors on stage, her question was too big for the five minutes remaining. However, it hung over the venue like an ominous cloud on an otherwise sunny-skies day of research into English as a medium of instruction and the government’s Bilingual Nation 2030
RSS