Taiwan will never be allowed into the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement until it removes restrictions on the import of US beef and pork, a conference on US-Taiwan relations was told on Friday.
“It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of agricultural issues, especially beef and pork, to [US] Congressional House and Senate attitudes about the TPP,” analyst Chris Nelson said.
A former Congress staff member with decades of experience on US-Taiwan issues, Nelson said that until the US agricultural community had signed off on the TPP, “it ain’t going to happen.”
If the agricultural community does not get what it wants from Taiwan on the beef and pork issues, he said, Taiwan would not gain entrance to the TPP.
“If Taiwan wants to get into TPP and it is still screwing around on beef and pork, it is not going to meet the basic qualification and be taken seriously,” Nelson said.
Asked if a solution to the beef and pork issue was a prerequisite to gaining US support for Taiwanese entry to the TPP in a second round of negotiations that could start later this year, former Congressional Research Service specialist in Asian security affairs Shirley Kan said: “The fact that you even have to ask this question just astonishes me.”
“This is serious,” she said. “Are you in denial?”
“We have heard all the arguments and excuses from Taiwan,” she said. “How they can’t do a thing, because elections are coming up. Well, there are no elections this year in Taiwan. Let’s not waste this year. If people are serious, this is the window of opportunity. Whether you use it or not is up to you.”
She said that Taiwan had a lot of work to do to restore trust as a reliable economic partner that relied on scientific and international standards.
“Taiwan has to — by itself, today — remove the remaining obstacles concerning beef and pork,” she said.
Kan said that, if this was not done, people might look back in years to come and say that Taipei had committed a strategic blunder.
“Will Taiwan let this opportunity go?” she asked.
Kan said that it was ironic that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could not forge a domestic political consensus for the benefit of the country.
“Where is the leadership in the KMT and the DPP?” she asked.
Taiwan is struggling to gain US support for membership in the TPP, which could be of enormous benefit to Taiwan’s economy.
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