People yesterday took to the streets in Taipei to demand better food safety and protesting against Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), which was involved in an adulterated cooking oil scandal.
The rally began at 2:15pm on Ketagalan Boulevard to the sound of a rap song created for the event with lyrics including: “We want food safety, to feel safe when we eat,” “Taiwan is famous for delicious food, but now even China is banning tainted food from Taiwan” and “We are against ‘black-hearted’ food.”
The event was initiated by Chang Jen-chi (張仁吉), who last year launched an online campaign to boycott Ting Hsin products.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Protesters criticized the not-guilty ruling handed down to former Ting Hsin employees by the Changhua District Court late last month over alleged breaches of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) after the firm was accused of using animal feed-grade oil and fat in cooking oil meant for human consumption in 2013.
“We urge amendments to the act so that anyone who has been found guilty in a food safety case is barred from operating a food company ever again,” Chang said, adding that the ban should also apply to close relatives of those found guilty.
“We are not only against Ting Hsin, but we also demand food safety,” Revolution Congress convener Wang Yi-kai (王奕凱) said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“It is because Ting Hsin has food safety problems that we want to terminate it,” which is a way to demand food safety, said Wang, who helped organize the protest. “We want companies to know that society has the power to resist them, so companies will not keep looking for loopholes in the law.”
In response to questions about Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業), a subsidiary of Ting Hsin, Chang said that “because Ting Hsin has a stake of about 40 percent stake in Wei Chuan, for every NT$100 spent buying Lin Feng Ying (林鳳營) milk made by Wei Chuan, Ting Hsin makes NT$40.”
“We do not want Ting Hsin to make any money,” Chang said, referring to protests earlier in the week where Costco stores were targeted in a milk-buying-and-refund campaign.
On Facebook, the organizers invited Wei Chuan managing director Michael Su (蘇守斌) to join the parade and said the firm should buy back its shares from Ting Hsin.
A protester wearing a striped shirt mimicking jail clothing displaying the words “prisoner” and “guilty” said that having lived abroad for 23 years, he had seen several executives involved in food scandals apologize to the public and face judicial punishment.
The man, surnamed Wu (吳), said he felt that the Ting Hsin case had left Taiwanese feeling cheated, as those things had not happened in this case.
A man surnamed Wang (王) said he felt that the government had not done its job properly and had protected Ting Hsin.
“I feel hopelessness over the court’s ruling,” he said.
The protesters walked nearby streets chanting: “Food scandals revealed one after another, the people must take to the streets for justice” before returning to the start point in front of the Presidential Office Building at about 4pm.
There, participants were invited to speak.
Before the event ended at about 5:30pm, Wang Yi-kai said that they had communicated face-to-face with Executive Yuan officials earlier in the day concerning the demands of the public over food safety.
He said the demands included amendments to regulations, a new investigation into the Ting Hsin case, cooperation with other nations to initiate action against producers of unethical food, protection of labor rights for employees of unethical companies and bolstering laws to prevent conflicts of interest by government officials in food scandals, as well as increasing bonuses for people who report food safety problems.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
RSS