Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌) yesterday acknowledged that the ministry is mulling lifting its ban on imports of food products from five Japanese prefectures near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, following discoveries that more than 250 food products manufactured in the five areas have illegally entered the country with false origin labeling.
Chiang made the remarks when pressed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee yesterday morning to confirm reports that the government is deliberating relaxing the ban due to mounting pressure from the Japanese government.
“It is true that Japan has made such a request, actually more than once over the years since the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdown. It stressed that its nation’s [food] products were safe, and to my knowledge, many other countries have agreed to similar requests,” Chiang said.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
Chiang said that given Taiwan’s ban on food products from the five prefectures was relatively stringent and that Japan has proposed the idea on multiple occasions, “the ministry is obligated by international custom to deliberate on the proposal’s feasibility.”
The government imposed the ban on food items from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures in March 2011.
It has also subjected nine categories of food products from other parts of Japan to batch-by-batch border inspections — fresh vegetables and fruits; frozen vegetables and fruits; fresh aquatic products; frozen aquatic products; baby formula; dairy products; seaweed; tea leaves; and drinking water.
Photo: CNA
The minister’s statements came at a particularly sensitive time for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has been accused of deliberately delaying the publication of its findings that a dozen Taiwanese companies had been importing hundreds of food products from the five prefectures with fake origin labels.
A press release issued by the New Taipei City Government’s Public Health Department on Tuesday evening said that the FDA recently found that two soy sauce products imported by Taipei-based Sheng Yu Trading Co (盛裕貿易) on Feb. 4 were labeled as being produced in Tokyo, but were actually manufactured in Chiba and Gunma.
However, the administration did not take any action until Thursday last week, when it accompanied health officials in raiding the factories of implicated companies. The FDA released the findings late on Tuesday.
As of 12pm yesterday, a total of 294 food products imported from 12 firms have been ordered off the shelves over their allegedly adulterated place of origin labels, including Kirin’s (午後紅茶) Afternoon Tea Straight Tea, Milk Tea and Lemon Tea beverages, Nissin Food Products Co’s cup noodles and Japanese confectioner Morinaga’s six cookie and sweet products.
The falsified Chinese labels, which were reportedly simply attached on top of the original Japanese-language ones, claimed that they were manufactured in Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Okayama or other regions far from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
However, 108 of the products were produced in Gunma, 74 were from Ibaraki, 48 from Chiba, 45 from Tochigi and 19 from Fukushima. The FDA has sent all the potentially questionable items to the Atomic Energy Council for testing, of which 193 were found to contain no radioactive residue as of yesterday.
During the committee meeting, Lin said she was unsatisfied with Chiang’s comments, adding that Taiwan’s ban is far from strict, since China has not only banned all food imported from 10 high-risk Japanese prefectures, but also demanded a radiation detection report and a government-issued place of origin for food items from other areas of the country.
“Taiwan only imposed a food import ban on five prefectures and the ministry has used every excuse it could think up to procrastinate in implementing a draft regulation that requires importers of the above nine types of products to provide a country of origin certificate and a radiation assessment report issued by the Japanese government,” Lin said.
Lin said that nearly five months had passed since the FDA started seeking public opinion over the proposal in late October last year, a process that usually takes just two months.
FDA Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) pledged to publish the draft regulation within two weeks, adding that the new rule is expected to take effect in late June at the latest after both sides finalize the format of the required official documentation.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus called for immediate removal of potentially radioactive Japanese food products from the shelves, with one lawmaker proposing a boycott of all Japanese foodstuffs.
KMT Legislator Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉), at a news conference held by the caucus that Chiang Yu-mei attended, proposed condemning unscrupulous companies and the Japanese government, demanded a pre-emptive measure of pulling all Japanese food products off shelves and that all Taiwanese to boycott Japanese food products.
KMT Legislator Wu Yu-jen (吳育仁) asked why Japan had failed to provide official certification on the place of origin for food exported to Taiwan, when it apparently had been doing so to other countries, including China.
Additional reporting by Alison Hsiao
CAUTION: Taiwanese should be alert, even if they have just liked or shared posts that would breach Beijing’s national security legislation for Hong Kong, the council said Due to the newly implemented Hong Kong national security legislation, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has drawn up a list of what it described as “high-risk groups,” cautioning them not to travel to Hong Kong. People who support independence for Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang; those who are critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Hong Kong government and the “one country, two systems” concept; and those who donated to or voiced support for the Hong Kong anti-extradition bill movement are urged to refrain from visiting Hong Kong, the council said on its Web site. It released two posts on
NEW HONG KONG LAW: A visit to Beijing-friendly nations or those with weak judicial systems could leave people at risk of deportation to China, a former MAC official said Beijing could request countries with which it has extradition agreements to deport Taiwanese to China to face criminal charges following the implementation of national security legislation for Hong Kong, a former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official warned yesterday. Some developing countries, and those close to China because of the Belt and Road Initiative, are likely to accommodate Beijing’s requests to extradite Taiwanese to China, said former deputy MAC minister Chen Ming-chi (陳明祺), who served from July 2, 2018, until May 20, and then returned to his former post as an assistant professor of sociology at National Tsing Hua University. While Taiwanese
IN THE PIPELINE: The Ministry of National Defense said the sale, expected to take effect in one month, would be the seventh arms sale under the Trump administration The government yesterday thanked the US for approving the possible sale of a US$620 million missile repair and recertification package to Taiwan. The US Department of State has approved the sale of a package to recertify Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington for an estimated US$620 million, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release on Thursday. The agency has delivered the required certification to the US Congress, notifying it of the possible sale, it added. The TECRO had requested to buy an upgrade package that would support an operational
INJURED: Several KMT lawmakers fought their way through DPP members into the legislative chamber, while others lay on a driveway to block Chen Chu Scuffles broke out at the Legislative Yuan yesterday as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers again occupied the legislative chamber, stymieing a report by Control Yuan presidential nominee Chen Chu (陳菊) and a question-and-answer session. The KMT lawmakers showed up at the back door of the chamber at about 5am and tried to enter, but were stopped by several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers who were guarding the door. Scuffles broke out as the KMT lawmakers tried to force their way through the door, injuring legislators on both sides. KMT Legislator Hung Mong-kai (洪孟楷) tackled DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), while DPP Legislator Wu
RSS