A ban on food imports from Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture and other areas affected by a 2011 nuclear disaster might jeopardize the nation’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an official said yesterday.
Taiwan-Japan Relations Association Deputy Secretary-General Fan Chen-kuo (范振國) confirmed that the government has been seeking Tokyo’s support to join the Asia-Pacific trade agreement.
The association is a quasi-official organization established in 1972 to represent the nation’s interests and handle ties with Tokyo in the absence of diplomatic relations.
Photo: CNA
Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has previously said that Taiwan’s ban on food imports from Fukushima has hobbled the nation’s economic exchanges with Japan.
Taiwan and China are the only two countries that forbid food products from Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, Hsieh said, adding: “Should China lift its import ban on Fukushima food products, Taiwan would be put in an awkward position.”
Taiwan banned food imports from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures after the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in March 2011.
Fan said the Taiwanese government has been requesting official support from Japan since talks started on the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the CPTPP’s predecessor.
The association is actively lobbying for a seat at the table for CPTPP’s second-round talks and the Japanese government has not made the ban on Fukushima food products an issue, he said.
“However, we cannot rule out that it could be an issue,” he said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hopes that the nation’s discourse about food safety will be guided by scientific knowledge, not emotions, he said.
China and Japan have engaged in talks about Fukushima food products via party-to-party channels since December and they are expected to put together a working group in the immediate future, Fan said.
It is not as yet known what results those talks would yield or achieve, he said.
“The position of the foreign ministry is that food safety issues should be governed by the WTO framework and determined by science and data,” he said. “Politicization of the issue is counterproductive to the development of our international trade.”
States involved in the CPTPP project on Tuesday completed a two-day negotiation about going forward without the US and are expected to convene in Chile in March to sign the treaty.
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