Taiwan reaffirmed its ban on imports of US pork containing the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine, in response to a US official’s remarks on Wednesday on Taiwan’s bid to join a proposed US-led regional trade bloc.
Ministry of Economic Affairs officials said that Taiwan will “strive for what we need to,” when negotiating with the US on trade-related issues, but reiterated that the policy of dealing with pork and beef imports separately remains unchanged for the time being.
The statements were issued in response to remarks by Acting Deputy US Trade Representative Wendy Cutler, who raised the possibility of a two-track approach by the US on negotiations related to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade bloc.
Cutler cited the US-Japan example when answering questions on Taiwan’s bid to join the TPP and the issue of US pork imports during a conference held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Her remarks suggested that if Taiwan wanted to join the TPP, it would need to address outstanding bilateral trade issues.
In the two-track consultations with Japan, Cutler said, the US needs to make sure that Japan is ready to take on the high-level commitments of the TPP and that both sides will have to work through bilateral areas of concern, which include auto and insurance issues.
The US is also taking the same approach in consultations with other TPP candidates, such as South Korea, she added.
“That is the approach we follow when holding TPP consultations with respective candidates,” she said.
The US has long been concerned about Taiwan’s ban on imports of US pork containing ractopamine, and this is seen as one of the issues that need to be addressed during negotiations concerning Taipei’s TPP bid.
On the issue of imports of US pork, Taiwanese economic officials said: “We will approach the issue based on our policies and regulations.”
However, for the time being, Taiwan insists on its existing separate regulations for pork and beef imports, they said.
Taiwan lifted its ban on US beef containing the drug in July 2012, paving the way for the resumption of talks under the Taiwan-US Trade and Investment Framework Agreement in March last year after a hiatus of more than five years.
The 12 existing TPP countries are trying to finish the first round of negotiations and will not accept any new members until they have been completed.
Taiwanese government agencies, including the ministries of economic affairs, education, welfare and health and the Financial Supervisory Commission, are trying to review domestic regulations to see if they can be brought into line with the standards required by the TPP.
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,
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
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
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: