Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) condemned his Chinese counterpart yesterday for stalling over the test results of melamine-tainted non-dairy creamers.
The safety of Chinese food products was a hot topic at the legislature’s Health, Environment and Labor Committee during a review of the health department’s budget. Yeh came under fire from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators for the lack of information from Beijing on the tests of imported creamers.
“I hereby express stern objections to China’s Ministry of Health,” Yeh said, adding that his department was pushing its Chinese counterpart on the issue every day and he did not know why there had been no reply.
In August, the department reported that 25 tonnes of melamine-tainted milk powder had been imported. Non-dairy creamers imported by King Car Co were also found to contain melamine, an industrial chemical banned as a food additive.
The supplier of the tainted creamers — Shandong Duqing Co — has not apologized.
DPP Legislator William Lai (賴清德) accused the health department of being “helpless, weak and incapable” in the face of China’s “delaying tactics.” He demanded the department take more effective measures against China.
“There should be more substantive measures than just expressing condemnation,” Lai said. “If Duqing does not offer a satisfactory answer, we should ban Chinese food imports altogether.”
All food products and ingredients imported from China should be clearly labeled, Lai said, and compensation should be paid if any products cause harm to Taiwanese businesses or consumers.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers also voiced concern over Chinese food imports.
KMT Legislator Daniel Hwang (黃義交) asked the health department to pass on the legislature’s concerns to the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait delegation that arrived yesterday for talks.
Yeh said the contents of the proposed cross-strait agreement on food safety would specify that China must impose strict regulations on its exports to ensure that they pass Taiwan’s standards.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods