The government should not allow imports of US pork containing the animal feed additive ractopamine before on-site inspections of US meat factories are concluded, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
Public support for Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) has fallen lately “because everything [he is] doing is in the wrong direction,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) told a news conference in Taipei.
While responding to reporters’ questions on Tuesday, Su said that the government would send inspectors to the US after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, Wang said.
Photo: CNA
“When will the pandemic end, Premier Su?” she asked.
Wang asked why the Executive Yuan was insisting on allowing pork containing ractopamine residue to enter Taiwan starting on Jan. 1 if it had not conducted inspections, and why in the middle of a pandemic.
Su on Tuesday cited the pandemic as reason that Taiwanese inspectors could not travel abroad and conduct inspections.
Wang accused the Executive Yuan of failing to safeguard food safety for the public.
She said that the government has been inconsistent about its plans for inspections of pork containing ractopamine residue.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) on Nov. 11 said that the government does not rule out the possibility of conducting virtual inspections, the KMT said.
However, Chen on Thursday last week said that Taiwan would not accept video inspections and vowed to send inspectors to the US for on-site checks before Jan. 1, it said.
Four days later, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said overseas inspections were not a necessary condition for approving imports, it said.
Wang said the KMT could not accept the inconsistencies in the statements made by officials in the Democratic Progressive Party administration.
Allowing meat products from major meat factories to enter Taiwan without an understanding of their sanitary conditions on-site would be to put the food safety of Taiwanese at greater risk, she said.
About 67 percent of Taiwanese are against allowing imports of US pork containing ractopamine, she said, citing a Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation survey released on Tuesday.
The figure represented about a 5 percentage point increase from a similar poll conducted by the foundation last month, she said.
Taiwanese’s rejection of pork containing the leanness-enhancing additive is increasingly clear, she said.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration should stand with public opinion and protect the food safety of people, she said.
With a change in administration to take place in Washington, the Tsai administration should renegotiate with the US, Wang said.
Given the high level of public opposition to the importation of pork containing ractopamine, the government has reason to start new negotiations with the US, she said, adding that it does not need to rush to implement the policy on Jan. 1.
Additional reporting by CNA
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