The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday denied that the AIT was “menacing” Taiwan, as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) put it, by tying a resumption of trade talks under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) to the US beef issue.
Whether Taiwan would allow imports of US beef containing residues of the leanness-enhancing animal feed additive ractopamine was an issue affecting relations between Taiwan and the US, AIT spokesperson Christopher Kavanagh said.
“To say that we are threatening [Taiwan], I think, no, clearly no,” Kavanagh said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Kavanagh also denied the DPP’s claims about an exchange of interests between Washington and Taipei in which the US nominated Taiwan as a candidate for its visa-waiver program three weeks before the January presidential election, according to the DPP, to boost President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election chance in return for the Ma administration’s promise to lift the import ban.
“No, there is absolutely no relation between visa waiver and beef. Visa waiver is governed under US laws and a country has to meet requirements of the laws to move forward in the process. It has nothing to do with beef, absolutely nothing,” he said.
“But beef, we can say that it has been a stumbling block in our trade agenda with Taiwan. Beef was the only factor which thwarted our efforts to resume our TIFA talks in 2010 and in 2011 ... We hope to resume TIFA talks as soon as possible,” Kavanagh added.
Initiated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), several party lawmakers met with AIT Director William Stanton on Tuesday to get a better idea of how lifting the ban would benefit the country in the advancement of bilateral relations.
The lawmakers told the press that the US would resume TIFA talks once the beef issue is resolved and a resolution of the issue would facilitate Taiwan’s inclusion in the US’ visa-waiver program and participation in a regional trade bloc.
At a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee yesterday, DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) lambasted the US for what he said was Washington’s blatant intimidation by stalling the TIFA talks while the beef issue remains unresolved.
DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) suspected a “backroom deal” between the Ma administration and the US as she said the government was “offering up the public’s health as a sacrifice” in exchange for progress on issues such as the visa waiver and TIFA negotiations.
In response, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tung Kuo-yu (董國猷) said the US did not pressure Taiwan to begin importing US beef containing residues of ractopamine and reiterated that the Ma administration has not made any promises to the US on the beef issue.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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