The director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) denied yesterday that the US is bullying Taiwan on the issue of US beef imports.
AIT Director William Stanton made the remarks in the face of protests that Washington has been putting pressure on Taipei to allow imports of US beef containing residues of ractopamine, a leanness enhancer used by the US meat industry that is banned in many parts of the world, including Taiwan.
“America doesn’t bully,” Stanton said.
Photo: Mandy Cheng, AFP
In a 45-minute interview with local media, Stanton said more than once that the US considers ractopamine to be a safe feed additive and he urged the Taiwanese authorities to review the current ban based on scientific findings and rational discussion.
A considerable number of studies have been done to prove ractopamine is a safe feed additive, he said, noting that millions of people have eaten meat with residues of ractopamine without falling sick.
“I think the whole debate has been a bit eschewed, frankly. All we say is, bring it back to science,” Stanton said.
Proposing a look at the problem from a historical perspective, he produced a notification submitted in 2007 by then-president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration to the WTO, saying that his government was going to allow ractopamine use in pigs and cattle.
“What happened was that pig farmers ... protested and the government backed down,” he said. “You have to understand the history of the issue to understand some of the frustrations of the US trade negotiators.”
Stanton said fears over health concerns and a negative impact on the domestic meat market are unfounded and not scientific. Citing statistics showing that the US on average consumes 98 percent of the pork it produces, Stanton said his country has no motive to stir up a disturbance in the local pork market.
Taiwan’s beef market is relatively small for the US, he added. He said Japan imported US$900 million of US beef, while South Korea imports US$600 million.
“The highest amount of beef we sold here was in 2010 and that was valued at about US$220 million,” he said.
“I think Taiwan needs in the future to diversify its markets,” Stanton said, adding that Taiwan’s international trade relations with the US could be hindered if the beef dispute remains unsolved.
“This kind of issue will be a stumbling block, not only with the US, but with winning free-trade agreements with other countries. So it’s in Taiwan’s own interest to open up its markets more,” Stanton said.
The US’ frustration, for example, can be seen in the long-stalled bilateral talks under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
Talks were brought to a halt in 2007 after Taiwan imposed a strict ban on ractopamine in 2006 and returned batches of US beef containing residues of ractopamine.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching