So frequent are scuffles between Taiwan’s legislators that when punches fly on the floor of the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber, it is no longer considered newsworthy to a domestic audience.
However, an international audience unaccustomed to Taiwanese lawmakers’ rambunctious style of “debate” was left captivated and baffled by a “food fight” that broke out in the chamber on Friday last week over the government’s decision to allow the import of US pork containing residues of ractopamine.
International news media carried a flurry of reports depicting messy scenes as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers attempted to obstruct Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) from delivering his administrative report to the chamber with an impromptu “butcher demonstration.”
In addition to the usual waving of placards, shouting of slogans, blowing of whistles and sounding of klaxons, KMT legislators dumped bucketfuls of pig hearts, lungs, stomachs, intestines and other porcine internal organs onto the carpeted floor of the debating chamber. As the offal went flying, lawmakers began trading blows.
Fisticuffs in the nation’s legislature has become an unwelcome trademark of Taiwanese politics that has — once again — caused the nation to lose face on the international stage as people around the world saw the standards of Taiwan’s lawmakers.
According to the Legislative Yuan’s secretariat, replacing the heavily stained and unpleasant smelling carpet in the main chamber is to cost Taiwanese taxpayers more than NT$1 million (US$34,763).
However, instead of offering an apology, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) defended his party’s actions, saying: “If we had not protested with a robust demonstration, we would have been complicit in the birth of a dictatorship.”
Chiang’s explanation failed to cut the mustard. The Republic of China Swine Association, for one, is unhappy, saying in a statement: “Internal organs of pigs should not be abused and wantonly flung about as political props.”
In a spectacular own-goal, the KMT has insulted the very people it professed to be concerned about — the nation’s pig farmers.
Within the KMT, many party members are deeply embarrassed by the KMT legislative caucus’ latest stunt. KMT Youth League leader Chen Po-han (陳柏翰) criticized the protest for being inept and irrational, asking: “Can’t they show some self-restraint and do normal politics?”
Three months ago, the government announced that restrictions on the importation of US pork and beef are to be eased from next month. While Washington welcomed the announcement, it sparked a political backlash in Taiwan.
Pork farmers worry that they are to lose market share, while consumers are concerned that eating meat products with residues of the feed additive ractopamine could harm their health.
The government has yet to implement measures to monitor ractopamine levels in imported US meat once the restrictions are lifted, and has failed to effectively communicate with the public and allay their fears, gifting the opposition an opportunity to spread hype.
The issue of US pork and ractopamine — originally an issue of food safety, public health, science and trade — has been elevated to a political hot potato.
In Taiwan’s polarized society, once an issue becomes politicized, reason all too often goes out the window as battle lines are drawn and positions become entrenched. Before long, the debate has descended into an ideological struggle.
Over the past few years, populism has gained more of a following at home and abroad. Differences between the pan-blue and pan-green camps have become increasingly insoluble and the debate increasingly acrimonious.
Politicians and political parties often shout high-sounding slogans, but in the end, they always put the party’s interests first. During its time as the opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) strongly opposed the lifting of restrictions on US pork imports, and the KMT has attacked the party’s U-turn, saying that the DPP obviously “had a brain transplant after switching sides in the legislative chamber.”
While the accusation is true — the DPP has changed its position — it is also true of the KMT.
During the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the KMT opened up Taiwan’s market to imports of beef containing residues of ractopamine, but today it strongly boycotts the importation of US pork with such residues — and even chants: “Taiwanese lives matter.”
This is not that surprising. After all, politicians and political parties of all colors and stripes are guilty of double standards — as the old Chinese saying goes: “All crows under heaven are black.” Nevertheless, hearing the pot call the kettle black is exasperating.
If the KMT is engaging in opposition for opposition’s sake, it could be said that old habits die hard for the nation’s main opposition party, except that the damage to national interests is significant and plain for all to see: The KMT’s opportunistic opposition to US pork imports demonstrates that the party and its politicians are ignoring the bigger picture.
The KMT is more interested in pursuing short-term political gain than doing what is right for the nation.
In the same way, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) last week presided over a ceremony marking the start of the Haichang Project (海昌計劃), the construction of the nation’s first indigenous submarines, with the first scheduled for completion in 2025 and a total of eight submarines planned.
Many Taiwanese remember that in 2001, then-US president George W. Bush announced that the US would sell eight submarines to Taiwan, but the KMT opposed the deal and blocked passage of the budget on 69 occasions, killing the sale.
Two decades have passed. China has built up its military and, although Beijing’s intimidation and threats have become commonplace, Taiwan still lacks underwater combat capability, and is now left to build its own from scratch.
The project is the beginning of a long, arduous road that Taiwan did not need to travel. This is probably one of the KMT’s more egregious mistakes, and it should apologize to Taiwanese.
This is the political ugliness that has continued to play out since the DPP and the KMT first traded power 20 years ago. Taiwanese have become accustomed to them changing positions on public policy, depending on whether they are the party in power or the opposition.
The parties seem willing to argue one point when in power, only to turn into critics when they become the opposition, apparently without even having the self-awareness to see what is happening.
While this cycle carries on, the nation’s interests and security suffer. Even worse, such bickering turns the nation in on itself, making it ignorant of changes abroad. Taiwan, faced with serious domestic and international challenges, simply cannot indulge in this kind of willful political isolationism.
Neither party can be absolved of guilt in this regard, but the KMT ought to bear the larger share of the blame.
The KMT is still pushing to keep the ban on food imports from five prefectures in Japan. Taiwan banned food imports from the prefectures following the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster, and 10 years later, Taiwan, China and South Korea are the only countries to maintain the ban.
ASEAN and five regional partners have signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and Taiwan wishes to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, but former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was a good friend to Taiwan, has stepped down. Common sense alone should tell Taiwanese that this will not happen as long as the food import ban remains in place.
These examples of the KMT’s relations with other countries — its boycott of the US submarine deal and its insistence on the ban of Japanese food imports, along with former president Ma Ying-jeou’s pro-China stance — show how the party has consistently been anti-US and anti-Japan. This stance is also apparent in the KMT’s opposition to US pork imports, even if it insists that it is fighting on behalf of Taiwanese.
The KMT’s performance in the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week is proof positive that the party cannot divest itself of these old habits.
Translated by Edward Jones and Paul Cooper
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