The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged the public to join a protest in Taipei on Sunday against the government’s decision to allow the imports of US pork products with residue of the animal feed additive ractopamine.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 announced that Taiwan would ease restrictions on Jan. 1 on imports of US pork containing traces of ractopamine, as well as beef from cattle aged 30 months or older.
While Tsai’s government has said that people can choose not to consume pork products containing ractopamine, it is unwilling to require labeling that would clearly indicate whether a product contains the additive, KMT Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), a co-convener of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
It is only willing to require country of origin labeling for pork products, but people cannot tell from such labeling alone whether a product contains the additive, Chiang said.
Without a way to tell whether ractopamine is present, people do not have the right to choose whether to consume the product, he said.
He urged people to come out on Sunday to “bravely stand up and say ‘no’” to pork containing ractopamine for the health and safety of themselves and of the next generation.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
The KMT also released a video asking people to join Sunday’s protest.
The video featured KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) and local government heads, including New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕).
Supporters should gather at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei at 12:30pm, wearing black shirts and masks, the KMT wrote on Facebook.
There would be a march from the memorial to the Presidential Office Building, the Executive Yuan and the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) headquarters, it said.
In related news, Johnny Chiang said in a radio interview earlier in the day that polls conducted by the KMT and some media outlets have found that the DPP is “moving further away from mainstream public opinion.”
Support for the KMT has increased over the past six months, and the latest survey conducted by the KMT found that levels of support for the two parties were “very close,” he said.
He said that he believed the DPP is also aware of the trend.
Asked about next year’s KMT chairperson election and possible challengers, he said that “as long as it [multiple candidates] is good for the party, I think we do not need to look at it negatively.”
The KMT chairperson election is typically held between May and July, he said.
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