The Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday held a hearing on a referendum proposal to ban imports of US pork treated with the controversial feed additive ractopamine.
Submitted on Sept. 23 by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Lin Wei-chou (林為洲), the referendum question reads: “Do you agree that the government should impose a complete ban on the importation of meat, offal and related products from pigs fed leanness-enhancing agents, including ractopamine and other beta-agonists?”
The proposal came after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 announced that, starting on Jan. 1, Taiwan would ease restrictions on imports of US pork containing the leanness-enhancing drug, as well as beef from cattle aged 30 months or older.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Most experts participating in the hearing said that Lin’s proposal met the qualifications of a national referendum, the commission said.
Some matters are explicitly listed in the Referendum Act (公民投票法) as items that should not be decided by referendums, such as the appointment of government officials, taxes, budgets and issues related to constitutional reform, Lin said.
If the commission blocks proposals on matters outside these areas, it undermines the spirit of the act, which is to allow the public to express opinions on major policies and laws, he said.
Although some have questioned whether Tsai’s announcement on US meat imports constitutes “an established policy,” subsequent statements by Tsai and government agencies have shown that the announcement is no different from an official policy, lawyer Yeh Ching-yuan (葉慶元) said.
Based on precedent, Lin’s proposal — which concerns food safety and imports — should be accepted, as the commission has previously allowed referendums opposing imports of US beef and food from areas near major sources of radiation, Yeh said.
Although some have raised concerns about the objectivity in the language of the referendum — which includes phrases such as “the government’s black-box decision,” “to please certain countries” and “the bargaining chip for the exchange of interests” — these are statements of fact, he said.
The commission has previously accepted proposals that used phrases such as “a hairpin-turn decision baffling the public” or “throwing people’s hard-earned money into the sea,” he said, adding that the same standards should be applied here.
Tsai’s announcement has already become national policy, Fu Jen Catholic University law professor Wu Chi-kwang (吳志光) said, citing subsequent constitutional interpretations, the Executive Yuan’s attitude and the difficulty the KMT has faced in attempting to oppose the plan.
His only concern is that some of the language in Lin’s proposal could have been more neutral, but the meaning is clear, causing no ambiguities for interpretation, Wu said.
National Chengchi University law professor Liu Tzong-der (劉宗德) said that Lin’s proposal qualifies as a national referendum, while National Taiwan University of Science and Technology assistant professor Chen Yan-jen (陳衍任) said that it would be better if some of the more negative words in the proposal were modified.
However, Chen said that although the proposal contains some generic terms, such as “ractopamine and other beta-agonists” or “related products,” they are not confusing when put into context.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) said that whether Tsai’s announcement constitutes as policy for the proposed referendum to be held should be determined by the commission.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare believes that revisions should be made to the question raised in the referendum, because Tsai’s announcement would lift only the import ban on pork containing ractopamine, with any other type of leanness-enhancing agents remaining banned, he said.
The proposal also said that Taiwanese consume more pork than beef every year, but Taiwan’s annual consumption of US beef is 3kg per person, compared with 0.49kg of US pork per person, he said.
Lin rebutted Hsueh’s remarks, saying that as pork containing ractopamine would be cheaper, the annual consumption would rise after it enters the local market.
After Japan allowed imports of pork containing ractopamine 15 years ago, the treated pork eventually accounted for more than 50 percent of its total imported pork, Lin said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater