Few politicians have emerged unscathed from the tussle over imports of US pork containing ractopamine residue. The latest casualty is Ting Yi-ming (丁怡銘), who committed an unforced error by saying the winning dish at the Taipei Beef Noodle Festival used US beef containing ractopamine, leading him to resign as Executive Yuan spokesman.
What Ting says in a personal capacity about this issue is of little interest, but he made up the story and spoke in his capacity as a government spokesperson for political reasons.
He had apologized and Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) initially defended him, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) called for Ting’s head, accusing him of spreading false information.
Ting was right to resign. Apologies are easy.
However, stepping down as soon as he was shown to be wrong would have demonstrated true contrition.
When an apology leads to resignation only when the issue becomes embarrassing for the government, contrition has clearly taken a back seat to political expedience. An expression of true repentance would have demonstrated awareness of wrongdoing and ensured that the mistake is not repeated.
Instead, there were disingenuous attempts by the government to contain the political fallout, while the opposition was obviously exploiting the circumstances.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) cannot resort to misinformation — or even the perception of misinformation — especially when it is waging a war on false reporting. Complacency is not a good look.
There are also concerns that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is falling into the trap of poor policy communication that plagued her first term, although she seems to be erring on the side of decisive action, instead of the excess of caution that led to slothful progress of her reform agenda.
While Ting’s resignation could be construed as a public relations victory for the KMT, its allegations of dissemination of false information by the DPP were somewhat diluted by revelations that a video the KMT circulated online, purporting to show a pig writhing in agony after receiving ractopamine injections, was not all that it seemed.
Not only has Animal Outlook, the group that made the video, said it had no evidence of a connection between the pig and ractopamine, and that the video was never intended to prove one, it was also quoted by the Central News Agency as saying that it had made all of this clear to the KMT when it gave permission for the footage to be used.
The party has refused to take the video down.
Just as Su tried to make amends by eating at the restaurant that was the target of Ting’s accusation, among KMT members, former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) and committee deputy director-general Huang Tzu-che (黃子哲) backed the video, presumably without mentioning that ractopamine was banned in 2006 by then-president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) DPP administration, or that in 2012 it was allowed in US beef imports by then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT.
Meanwhile, KMT caucus whip Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) accused the DPP government of abusing the beef noodle industry for its gain, unlike the KMT, which seems to be exploiting the industry for its own purposes.
Ting’s comment was a foolish error, Su should have been more proactive in containing the fallout and Tsai needs to avoid wasting political capital and improve policy communication.
However, the KMT needs to be a more effective opposition, not allowing itself to be distracted by sideshows.
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) are expected to meet this month in Paris to prepare for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). According to media reports, the two sides would discuss issues such as the potential purchase of Boeing aircraft by China, increasing imports of US soybeans and the latest impacts of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. However, recent US military action against Iran has added uncertainty to the Trump-Xi summit. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) called the joint US-Israeli airstrikes and the
RSS