DPP agrees to discuss amendment on US beef imports 

 

 

The ruling and opposition parties reached a consensus to continue consultations on an amendment related to a controversial protocol signed by Taiwan and the US that opened Taiwan's market to US bone-in-beef.

 

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng called in the whips of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to discuss the issue, and the two sides agreed to continue to talk based on a resolution reached a month earlier.

 

The November 3 resolution stated that before the Act Governing Food Sanitation is amended, US beef parts considered hazardous, including beef offal, ground beef, spinal cord, brain, skull and eyes, should not be allowed to be imported.

 

Wang met earlier with the DPP caucus and Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen to exchange views on the dispute over the amendment, which led the DPP to boycott the operations of the legislature for more than one month.

 

Sources said Tsai asked the KMT legislative caucus to conclude the consultations in one week, and stressed that if a consensus could not be reached, the DPP legislative caucus will continue its boycott campaign.

 

Meanwhile, William A. Stanton, Taipei director of the American Institute in Taiwan, called on Wang to reiterate Washington's view that Taiwan should abide by the protocol signed with the US, which allows the import of previously banned bone-in beef, ground beef and offal.

 

DPP legislative whip Wang Sing-nan said only US slaughterhouses can test cow's brains for prion protein, which is linked to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, and establish the safety of the cow.

 

The examination fee for each cow would be NT$700 (US$22), Wang said. If the cows are turned into ground beef and imported to Taiwan without undergoing the test, it will be impossible to detect such a disease.

 

Wang said that to deter potentially hazardous beef from entering Taiwan, the US will have to take the initiative to inspect its beef, and that if Taiwan thinks that it can conduct rigorous inspections of the beef when it arrives in Taiwan, then it is delusional.

 

KMT whip Lu Hsueh-chang said that according to quarantine officials of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, only the US can detect the prion protein.

 

"This is why the amendment will try to deter the beef from coming to Taiwan in the first place," Lu said.

 

Under a protocol with the US, Taiwan agreed to allow the entry of US bone-in beef, ground beef, and beef offal that were not contaminated by "specific risk materials (SRMs) " related to mad cow disease.

 

SRMs are defined in the protocol as brains, skulls, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cords, vertebral columns and dorsal root ganglia from cattle 30 months and older, or tonsils and the distal ileum of the small intestine from cattle of all ages.

 

The pact has resulted in great misgivings among the public. Civic groups recently submitted a petition to the Central Election Commission to try to initiate a national referendum on restarting negotiations with the US on the issue.

 

The DPP's principle will be to stop high-risk US parts at their source and that the government should restart talks with the US, DPP chairwoman Tsai said.