Pig farmers and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators on Tuesday last week protested at the legislature in Taipei against the import of US pork containing the leanness-enhancing feed additive ractopamine. KMT legislators carried a large polystyrene model of a pig into the legislature, chanting slogans and holding up placards reading: “[If] US pork is imported, [then] Lin Chuan steps down” and “US pork is laced with drugs, Taiwan does not want it.” We can only speculate as to whether this is to be the last clash in the legislature over this issue.
Both the KMT, during its time in power, and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government officials have said that the import of US pork containing ractopamine is the price the nation must pay in order to be admitted into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Unless Taiwan gives up on the TPP, the government can expect further protests from pig farmers.
There are three ways to eliminate a backlash from pig farmers. Their rejection of US pork is mainly based on concerns that the import of cheaper, leanness-enhanced products would have a negative impact on Taiwanese pork on the domestic market. Import duties are an important fiscal mechanism to protect domestic markets, and in a meeting in September last year between the Council of Agriculture and livestock farmers, pig farmers expressed concerns that if Taiwan joins the TPP, the current 12.5 percent import duty on pork would be removed.
If the government could guarantee that future import tariffs would not be completely removed, and if it made an effort to maintain those tariffs at a level close to today’s, pig farmers’ protests would likely subside.
The question is if Taiwan would be allowed to keep such tariffs under the TPP. Judging from Japan’s experience, it would be possible.
Prior to talks about entry into the TPP, Japan defined pork as a sensitive agricultural product and it succeeded in maintaining an import tariff of more than 10 percent on cheaper pork products.
During TPP negotiations, if the government can designate pork as one of the most protected products in Taiwan, then there is a possibility that it would be able to set the pork import tariff at about 10 percent, or at least maintain it at that level for a period of 10 years or more.
Furthermore, there seems to be a big difference between the Japanese and the Taiwanese governments in their approach to the impact on the agricultural industry of the TPP.
The Japanese government talked about subsidies before it talked about deregulation, while Taiwan’s government only talks about deregulation, without mentioning subsidies, so of course there is a big difference in how Japanese and Taiwanese pig farmers have reacted.
When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government came to power in 2012, it increased the agricultural budget by more than 5 percent before deciding to enter talks on Japan’s entry into the TPP. Previous Japanese governments had been reducing the agricultural budget every year for the previous 12 years. Abe reassured Japanese farmers that his government would care for them before he entered into TPP talks.
How will the Taiwanese government go about this?
After Taiwan joins the TPP, a multilateral free-trade framework, competitive Taiwanese industrial and agricultural products will be able to enter the US and Japan, two major markets, tariff-free, although by the same token, competitive agricultural products from the US would also be able to enter Taiwan tariff-free.
Assessing who in the Taiwanese market would be a winner and who would be a loser after entering into the TPP is the government’s job, and it should therefore also propose subsidies for those pig farmers that would suffer from the nation’s TPP membership.
For example, it could subsidize new technical pig farming equipment, thus increasing productivity, while at the same time improving the environment.
Apart from this, Taiwanese pig farmers have enjoyed profitable periods in the past thanks to exports to Japan. However, following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Taiwan in 1997, Japan discontinued importing Taiwanese pork, which created problems for Taiwanese pig farmers.
However, given proper controls, Taiwan proper could be designated as an area free of foot-and-mouth disease following a vaccination program.
Japan is already allowing imports from areas in some Brazilian states that have been designated as free of foot-and-mouth disease, although Japan only allowed imports from these states after they had filed applications for six or seven years.
If Taiwan proper could be designated as epidemic free in the coming two years, perhaps the current good diplomatic relations between the two nations would persuade Japan to reduce the application period to just one or two years.
If that were the case, it would be a real possibility that Taiwanese pork could once again be exported to Japan in three or four years’ time. If there was hope that this could happen, pig farmers would busy themselves making plans for the lucrative Japanese market and would no longer be so worried about US pork imports.
If the government continues to focus talks about the TPP on the import of US pork, then it is only playing the game on the terms laid down by the KMT.
If it instead focused on farmers and public opinion, and shifted the focus of the debate toward import duties, subsidies and the Japanese market, it would be setting the rules for the game.
Guo Yung-hsing is a professor in National Taichung University of Science and Technology’s Department of International Trade.
Translated by Perry Svensson
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
US President Donald Trump created some consternation in Taiwan last week when he told a news conference that a successful trade deal with China would help with “unification.” Although the People’s Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan, Trump’s language struck a raw nerve in Taiwan given his open siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression seeking to “reunify” Ukraine and Russia. On earlier occasions, Trump has criticized Taiwan for “stealing” the US’ chip industry and for relying too much on the US for defense, ominously presaging a weakening of US support for Taiwan. However, further examination of Trump’s remarks in
It is being said every second day: The ongoing recall campaign in Taiwan — where citizens are trying to collect enough signatures to trigger re-elections for a number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — is orchestrated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), or even President William Lai (賴清德) himself. The KMT makes the claim, and foreign media and analysts repeat it. However, they never show any proof — because there is not any. It is alarming how easily academics, journalists and experts toss around claims that amount to accusing a democratic government of conspiracy — without a shred of evidence. These
China on May 23, 1951, imposed the so-called “17-Point Agreement” to formally annex Tibet. In March, China in its 18th White Paper misleadingly said it laid “firm foundations for the region’s human rights cause.” The agreement is invalid in international law, because it was signed under threat. Ngapo Ngawang Jigme, head of the Tibetan delegation sent to China for peace negotiations, was not authorized to sign the agreement on behalf of the Tibetan government and the delegation was made to sign it under duress. After seven decades, Tibet remains intact and there is global outpouring of sympathy for Tibetans. This realization
RSS