Irritant Time with the US

For pete's sake don't miss this excellent piece by William Pesek: Is China Losing Taiwan? on the protests. Except for its strange title -- China never had Taiwan -- it's awesome.

Chang An-le the longtime gangster who started a pro-annexation political party here showed up in front of the LY to harangue the students today. A comical moment occurred when he accused them, basically, of not being good enough to be Chinese. I'm sure that was a really effective comment. He left at 5 but promised to come back. Rumors flying around that the legislature will convene to pass the pact tomorrow.....

Recall that the Ma Administrations goal of putting Taiwan into China's orbit has two complementary parts. The first involves pushing the nation into Beijing's arms. The second involves distancing it from the US. Enter the irritants, issues used to keep relations with the US troubled. The ractobeef issue has risen from the grave, resurrected to once again vex US-Taiwan relations as the ractopork issue. FocusTaiwan reports:

Taiwan will insist on barring imports of U.S. pork containing the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said Tuesday.

The COA said that U.S. pork currently accounts for between 18 percent and 20 percent of the country's exports*, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture issuing certificates that particular batches do not contain ractopamine residue.

The official made the remarks as a U.S. report said that Washington is concerned about Taiwan's ban on beef offal and pork containing ractopamine and could pressure Taiwan to lift its ban on ractopamine-containing pork imports.

The official noted that hog raising is the highest-grossing aspect of Taiwan's agricultural sector, adding that Taiwan will continue to insist on no imports of pork containing traces of ractopamine, while its own hog industry will also not use the drug.

What a coincidence! Just as Taiwan is about to pass major trade treaty with China, it disturbs trade negotiations with the US over the ractopork issue.

Unlike beef, which isn't much produced in Taiwan, pork is a major product. Ma has wisely positioned this policy so it has a broad swathe of support. The whole issue with ractobeef was that under the international trade agreements, by letting in ractopamine-dosed beef, Taiwan had given up the right to let in anything else dosed with ractopamine. Since heavily subsidized US ractopork threatens Taiwan's pork producers -- no starry-eyed innocents themselves when it comes to dosing pigs with drugs -- the government objected to beef to protect the pork producers.

*I think they mean Taiwan pork imports
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Daily Links:

• Manila is taking Beijing to court over its absurd claim to the South China Sea.
• Ma claims to be thinking about national trade conference to discuss the issues arising from the services pact. LOL.
• MOEA to institute services pact "education" at universities.

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