Taiwan has been informed that the import ban on US beef products containing ractopamine residue could have repercussions for the nation’s long-standing request to be included in the US visa-waiver program, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) said yesterday.
Shen made the remarks at the legislature’s Foreign and Defense Committee in response to questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀).
Shen said the US had expressed concern over the import ban by Taiwan, the six-largest market for US beef exports at US$114.3 million in October last year, according to US Meat Export Federation.
Shen said the US government expected to see progress on the ractopmaine issue before talks on a visa-waiver agreement could take place.
“We aim to separate the beef issue from other bilateral issues and hope that both countries can set aside disputes,” Shen said.
On Wednesday last week, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director William Stanton brought up the issue when he gave a speech at the American Chamber of Commerce’s annual Hsieh Nien Fan dinner, saying that he had been criticized by his bosses in Washington because he was sent to Taiwan “to make the beef problem go away, not to make US beef go away.”
The US postponed a meeting of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) between the two countries early this year because of the Ma administration’s handling of the beef imports issue, removing products from the supermarket shelves when traces of ractopamine were found.
Urged by the US to allow the use of ractopamine in meat products in accordance with standards adopted by the US and 25 other countries, the Taiwanese government had said it would not revise its zero-tolerance policy unless the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) established standards for trace levels of ractopamine.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening 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) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS