KMT to bash DPP with pork

This is what Taiwan needs: more recycling bikes

The KMT has found the first major issue it can use to bash the DPP with, with the Veep warning the DPP that permitting US pork imports would land it in hot water:

Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday denounced President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for not caring about citizens’ health. Wu noted that when Tsai was Deputy Premier, she failed to impose a ban on US beef when an outbreak of mad cow disease occurred in the US. According to Wu, it is now even more challenging for Tsai to lift the ban on US pork imports containing ractopamine residue as “people will hold her accountable.”

In response, the DPP retorted that when Wu was Premier, he was the one who allowed US beef to be imported from areas where mad cow disease had occurred without regard for the safety and health of people in Taiwan.

Pork and beef are contentious not because the government cares about the health of Taiwanese, but because both KMT and DPP patronage networks in farming communities are filled with pork farmers. Taiwan produces little beef, but under WTO regulations, if it imports beef with ractopamine, it must import all products containing that drug. Hence, if it imports US beef, it must accept US pork (before the beef mess began years ago, Taiwan took about one-eighth of US beef exports). However, if it takes in heavily subsidized US pork, local producers will scream (as will I, I hate rubbery US pork and prefer the fatty local stuff). Those producers will then blame whichever party lets in the pork.

The situation is even more complicated because the NPP is now bashing the DPP from the left on the pork issue even as the KMT bashes it from the right.

Note also that the KMT assigned this bashing to Wu Den-yi, a classic move -- it allows the Big Man (Ma Ying-jeou) to remain benevolent and distant while the right-hand man says what he really thinks. Moreover, Wu is a Taiwanese and presumably speaks to Taiwanese as one of their own...

Only the first of many such issues...
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Daily Links

• AmCham TOPICS 4 parter on energy and climate:
  

  The Politics and Policies of Climate Change in Taiwan
  Technologies to save the world
  Is Taiwan ready to Confront Climate Change?
  Taiwan's Allies: Vulnerable to Climate Change

• Seen a Sacred Ibis in Taiwan? I have, and photo'd them. But apparently they are all zoo escapees, and pests.
• Why is China prosecuting Taiwanese fraudsters? Because Taiwan won't lock them up. Scammer takes Taiwanese for US$377 million, is given US$30,000 bail. Of course jumps bail and disappears. Who could have predicted that? I'm not making this up. 
• Also from AmCham: Taiwan's diplomatic dilemma
• And then there is the tax evasion
• Nice punning title from the China Post: Embattled Academia Sinica Chief Wong not to step down. He's wong not to step down! Is Charlie Storrar doing the headlines over there now?
• EVENT: Urban Nomad Film Festival. Opening party May 16.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Deep anger at Ting Hsin Injustice

Another elaborate home for pigeons.

In retrospect it looks predictable and obvious: Ting Hsin got off in the toxic oil scandal. The China Post observes:

Former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co. Chairman Wei Ying-chung (魏應充), suspected to be behind a series of food safety scandals starting in 2013, was found not guilty yesterday in a ruling by the Changhua District Court due to lack of evidence.

Five others involved in the case, including a former CEO, a current chairman and the head of its Vietnamese food company subsidiary, were also found not guilty. Outraged civic groups holding signs outside the court described it as the darkest day in Taiwan food safety history.

Prosecutors, who had sought a 30-year sentence for Wei's role in the scandal, which involved tainted cooking oil, nutritional supplements, milk, rice and other food products, said that they intended to file an appeal.

Judges concluded that the measuring standard using acidity was not the most adequate means of determining the sanitary standards of cooking oil as refinement would cause acidity measurements to drop. The court indicated that according to its examinations, the polar compound level found in the samples was within safety limits for consumption.

Wei, who controlled three subsidiaries of the Ting Hsin International Group, was indicted for violating the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) in October 2014 after investigators suspected the group of allegedly selling cooking oil mixed with animal feed oil.

Note that the head of the Vietnamese subsidiary was found not guilty. It's super super super hard not to believe that everyone at the top of the firm knew what was going on, and certainly no one out there in the public believes that they were ignorant of the company's use of feed oil as food oil, but since at least some of the bad oil came from Vietnam, the man in charge of the Vietnam section had to know. The Taipei Times observed:

Yesterday’s ruling said prosecutors failed to prove that Ting Hsin Oil and Fat sourced fat extracted from unhealthy animals or that the company’s products were manufactured using unsanitary processes.

The defendants could not be proved to have committed the crimes they were charged with and are therefore not guilty, it said.

Naw. It's the usual case of the connected and powerful getting off. The Taiwan Law Blog said on Twitter:

@michaelturton @jmstwn Anger toward judge misguided. Existing laws suck, prosecution didn't do its job + facts may differ from media reports

Anger toward the judge is spot on, in my opinion. The final decision, obviously insane, rests with him. In fact the judge went out immediately to defend himself in the media since he knew perfectly well the decision was legally and morally indefensible.

Ting Hsin, run by the powerful Wei family (of Wei Chuan foods) is in thick with the KMT. Last time around this scandal provoked public anger at the then-ruling KMT. This time around there is deep deep anger: the public is fed up at the way the System protects the powerful, and most people I've contacted are convinced the judge was bought. I am not so sure -- the System so reflexively protects the powerful that this outcome seems inevitable. Originally I had assumed it would be a charade, though a slightly different one...

The Ting Hsin oil scandal is now hitting its prosecution phase, with prosecutors deciding to indict the owner of the hapless conglomerate with 30 years worth of charges. Some from the pan-Green camp in Taiwan are charging that the company made a deal with the Ma Administration to cover up its involvement in the oil scandal last year, from which it miraculously emerged unscathed. The owner of Cheng-yi, in the Ting Hsing group, was given charges worth a possible 18 years. No doubt they will go through the whole charade of a trial and sentencing and then flee to China like everyone else, where they will continue to run their multibillion dollar conglomerate. The Ting Hsin group was also forced to drop its attempt to become manager of Taipei 101 and banks withdrew loans for land acquisition.

I'd say someone got peeved at Ting Hsin over one of the many deals it was involved in and decided to unmask the firm, but it could just be bad luck. And just before the election too, voters were made aware that the Wei Family and the Lien clan whose scion Sean Lien is stumbling stumping for mayor in Taipei were buddy-buddy, a reminder of the you-scratch-my-back-I-give-you-lucrative-access nature of KMT rule. Also of interest in that scandal, an employee in the Pingtung County government faxed the document confirming that animal feed oil had been used to Ting Hsin "inadvertently", thus tipping the company off to the investigation.

I figured the courts would go through the whole ritual of finding them guilty and then they'd flee to China as is usually the case with KMT-connected individuals. But I was wrong -- the System produced a less troublesome verdict for them. If I were really really paranoid, I might conclude that giving the judge an excuse/opportunity for this verdict was the reason the Changhua prosecutors brought the case so hastily.

But however you interpret the verdict, the one fact in this train wreck is that the public is again going to blame the KMT for foisting this legally incompetent, ethically incomprehensible, and politically subservient judicial system on the nation, as well as for protecting Ting Hsin. Look for more punishment at the polls. TT described:

Netizens and civic groups reacted angrily to the ruling.

Saying the verdicts were vastly different from what the public expected, many netizens said that the nation’s judiciary was dead.

One netizen sarcastically said that he was glad to hear the ruling because it meant the oil he consumed over the past decade was safe and that he had not consumed tainted oil products for a decade or more.

This story actually broke in 2013, when the bad oil was connected to China. But that connection vanished. Ting Hsin's profits come largely from its China trade...

DPP Presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen had wisely been positioning the DPP as the party that cares about food security. This will likely pay off at election time.

But then the DPP will actually have to change the laws and overhaul the food system. Sure...

REF: Solidarity flipped me this video of Ma praising ECFA (in other words, himself) for bringing Ting Hsin back to Taiwan.

UPDATED: This image of the well-connected getting off is making the rounds.

The net is going to have a field day, and it will hurt the KMT.
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Oil Wars

Filipino workers have a day out on the bike trail outside Fengyuan.

The bad oil/food safety issue is inevitably being dragged into the local campaigns and becoming a partisan political issue in some areas. Since it is generally viewed as a deep-seated problem, candidates for major positions from both parties are forced to come with policies on it. Or at least pretend to have policies for it, since local governments can't do much...

A Taipei Times report shows how the DPP is positioning the oil issue as a government cover-up since the powerful Wei family of Ting Hsin and the powerful Lien family of the KMT are close to each other...

DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said that as early as on Oct. 9, Taiwan’s representative office in Vietnam told the ministry that the oil exported by Dai Hanh Phuc to Taiwan was intended for use in animal fodder, but the ministry started offloading oils made by Ting Hsin only on Oct 22. Further, it waited until Friday last week to say that 110 tonnes of oil bought from Ting Hsin by oil and fat producer President Nisshin Corp (統清), a subsidiary of Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), was coconut oil intended for animal feed.

The Pingtung government worker who "inadvertently" mailed confidential documents to Ting Hsin that alerted the company it was targeted has become the cornerstone of the KMT case that the Pingtung government, run by the DPP, was covering for Ting Hsin. The leak was a serious one, tipping off the firm it was being investigated. The Pingtung County Chief, from the DPP, then hilariously claimed that the whole thing was a set up, since the documents sent to the Pingtung office were not marked confidential while the ones sent to the Changhua office were. Clearly the FDA must have lured the poor office worker into sending them off to Ting Hsin. The FDA replied that common sense dictated that they were confidential documents.

But of course, it's the System at work: Ting Hsin is a Big Company with Big Face and Big Clout, and government and individuals all know that their purpose is to serve the needs of Big Business. It's not corruption, just the normal System kow-tow to perceived institutional authority. What is surprising is that there was ever an investigation at all...

Another signal of the System at work: the county government did indeed cover for crap oil makers, again and again dismissing the claims of the farmer whose whistleblowing started the whole affair. Yet this has not become a really serious issue, unlike the leak, possibly because the indifference to the farmer's evidence is a System issue that is a far bigger problem for the KMT than for the DPP.

Another striking fact: an article notes:

“Following the discovery in early September that the lard purchased [by cooking oil manufacturer] Chang Guann Co (強冠企業) from Hong Kong-based Globalway Corp Ltd (金寶運貿易) was animal-feed-grade, the FDA immediately launched an investigation into the nature of all lard oils imported to Taiwan on Sept. 15,” the agency said.

While all imported lard from Japan and Spain were confirmed to be safe for human consumption, the agency said it received a telegram on Oct. 9 from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hanoi, Vietnam, saying that the oil products exported by Dai Hanh Phuc Co — from which Ting Hsin had purchased 3,216 tonnes of lard in the past three years — were mainly lard and fish oils intended for use as animal feed.

Note that in just three weeks the representative office in Vietnam was able to verify that the oil exported to Taiwan was crap. This should have been done long ago...

Interestingly the KMT candidate has attempted to make the County's poverty a campaign issue:

Chien said that in the 17 years the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has ruled in Pingtung, the total population has dropped from 913,000 in 1997 to 852,000 last year.

The unemployment rate among youths between the ages of 15 to 29 has climbed from 5.5 percent in 1997 to 12 percent last year, roughly 2.5 percent higher than the national average, Chien said in a recent interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).

The county’s population of elderly has reached 13.54 percent, a whole 2 percent higher than the national average, as the younger generation moves elsewhere to find jobs, while the elderly slowly start to form the majority of the population, he said.

The county’s finances have also slumped in the past 17 years, with debt rising from NT$4.4 billion (US$145 million) in 1997 to NT$26.4 billion last year, Chien said, adding that the figures meant the average county resident is NT$31,000 in debt.

...thus showing how the KMT controlled central government uses its starvation of Pingtung County as political leverage against the DPP. According to pro-KMT news sources, the KMT's own internal polls have the DPP's lead over the KMT candidate in Pingtung narrowing to just 5 points. They blame the leaked document for the drop, which may explain the relentless focus on it.
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Daily Links:

• USEFUL: Synapticism with a great list of cheap flights from Taiwan to nearby Asian destinations for visa runs, etc.
• UNEXCELLED: Frozen Garlic on the race in Taipei District 2 and on You Hsi-kun's campaign strategy in New Taipei City. Both great mini-essays...
• UNPARALLELED: Ben with a campaign literature review
• Ketegalen media audio on the usual variety of interesting things
• EXCELLENT: A Tale of Two Food Safety Ads: with reference to Hegel, even. And bus ads.
• Thinking Taiwan: Lien and Ko campaigns focus on young voters
• Sean Lien campaign surges ahead of Ko Wen-je campaign in the Taipei mayor race in gaffe count: in latest pamphlets, Lien compares himself to Jesus and Buddha. Netizens are LMAO at Sean Lien's claim that if DPPers are elected the economy will collapse
• Manufacturing hits 13 month low
• 2014 Birdathon starts as BirdingTaiwan reports on the new field guide
• Housing transactions could hit ten-year low
• Transcript of NYTimes interview with Ma. The questions are posed beforehand, and the reporters cannot challenge Ma. Hence none of Ma's claims are challenged or contextualized. 
• ARGH: ROC rep in UK clarifies: Ma did not mean territory was limited to the 12 mile radius around the South China Sea island claims. So much for sanity....

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Friday Night Short Shorts: Loquacious Version

In case you've ever looked at your manager and thought: "My god, even a robot could do better than him", your wish will soon be granted. Yes, apparently the local youth, already reeling under stagnant pay and low wages, must now face the threat of robots moving into management positions. The thing is, when they do replace all those managers, will anyone even notice? Besides the KTV girls, I mean. Stat of note from the piece: mid-level management jobs in Taiwan have fallen by 170,000 positions in recent decades.

Good news out of Toronto: the school board voted 20-2 to terminate that Confucius Institute in the school district.

Which is it:

Taiwan GDP Growth Misses Estimates After Food Safety Concerns - Bloomberg          Taiwan's economy gains momentum in third quarter - MarketWatch

You decide!

The Economist joins the ranks of the many media organizations who have noticed that the Hong Kong protests are affecting Taiwan's already miniscule desire to annex itself to China. This is a major media moment, with many news organizations finally talking openly and clearly about Taiwan's lack of desire to become a satrapy of Beijing. And the Economist, which has always lavished affection on Ma Ying-jeou, said flatly he's one of the most unpopular elected leaders Taiwan has had. It even quoted Ketty Chen in her DPP capacity. Awesome.

The Ting Hsin oil scandal is now hitting its prosecution phase, with prosecutors deciding to indict the owner of the hapless conglomerate with 30 years worth of charges. Some from the pan-Green camp in Taiwan are charging that the company made a deal with the Ma Administration to cover up its involvement in the oil scandal last year, from which it miraculously emerged unscathed. The owner of Cheng-yi, in the Ting Hsing group, was given charges worth a possible 18 years. No doubt they will go through the whole charade of a trial and sentencing and then flee to China like everyone else, where they will continue to run their multibillion dollar conglomerate. The Ting Hsin group was also forced to drop its attempt to become manager of Taipei 101 and banks withdrew loans for land acquisition.

I'd say someone got peeved at Ting Hsin over one of the many deals it was involved in and decided to unmask the firm, but it could just be bad luck. And just before the election too, voters were made aware that the Wei Family and the Lien clan whose scion Sean Lien is stumbling stumping for mayor in Taipei were buddy-buddy, a reminder of the you-scratch-my-back-I-give-you-lucrative-access nature of KMT rule. Also of interest in that scandal, an employee in the Pingtung County government faxed the document confirming that animal feed oil had been used to Ting Hsin "inadvertently", thus tipping the company off to the investigation.

China's construction of islands on reefs in the South China Sea threatens Taiwan. Helicopters from the new bases could reach Taiping in five minutes, claims one legislator. Let's station warships there! he suggests. Taiping island is a strategic disaster for Taiwan, sucking military resources for no strategic return.

ECFA Awesomeness alert: Those ECFA successes just keep rolling in, a tsunami of greatness whose individual accomplishments require banks of supercomputers to track. For example, in the third quarter exports to China rose 6%, while imports from China fell 13%. Hahaha. No, of. course. not, that happened on ECFA Planet, where even Taiwan farts may be canned and profitably exported to China. No, here on Sol Three, exports to China declined 6%, following an overall decline of just over 9% for Q1 and Q2, while imports from China rose 13%. Exports to China have been rising the last few years, so this decline may be an ominous signal. But at least we have ECFA so we are not shut out of China's markets! That's why after ECFA our share of China's market has skyrocketed fallen to just 7.5% while everyone else, even the US whose largest export by weight appears to be bombs and by volume, Obama verbiage, has seen increases in market share this year.

A local sage and observer pointed out that news of China's buying missions has vanished from the intertubes. Have they stopped? Or are they just not being reported? Or what?

Pinch me. New road for Suhua will make it a tourist attraction, while old road will only be open to slower vehicles under 30 kms an hour and BIKES. BIKES BIKES BIKES. Doubly good -- the Chinese tourist herds will be whisked on air conditioned buses to the tourist trap slaughterhouses, while we gambol and cavort on a road preserved just for us. This can't be true.

More news collected at Thinking Taiwan's Taiwan Insider. SOAS in London is hosting Linda Arrigo talking on on the origins of the Taiwan Democracy Movement. Nov 7, at 2. Attend, she's always humorous and interesting, and no one knows more than her about that period.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Another day, another cooking oil scandal...

Nanhua Reservoir

Well, I've been manfully ignoring this latest cooking oil scandal, one in a string of dozens over the years since I've been here. I tire of commenting on them. But it's no use. It's just too damn big and hot right now. The KMT news organ emotes:

Last week, it was revealed that Cheng-I Food Co., Ltd. (正義公司), a subsidiary of the Ting Hsin Group (頂新集團), allegedly mixed animal feed oil with edible oil to produce over 60 kinds of cooking oil products for sale. During a press conference in the morning of October 11, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) stated that the tainted oil scandal caused widespread public concerns over food safety, and pledged that the government would demonstrate its resolve to root out all black-hearted (unscrupulous) food manufacturers. Jiang vowed, “The government will take all necessary measures to eliminate the production of tainted foods.”

In case you were wondering, the Kaohsiung city government shut down the production lines of Ting Hsin and Cheng-I, meaning that they do have the power to do that. Horse, barn door, etc. The premier had tariffs on imported lard lowered to help get exports to cover demand.

The Changhua County prosecutors office is pursuing this affair, and have detained several people related to the two firms. Chiayi county hosts the factories which sold animal feed oil to Ting Hsin/Cheng-I and the operators of those firms are being detained as well. The oil meant for animal feed came originally from Vietnam, so only the food gods know what is in it. *sigh*

I wrote in November of 2013 about the scandal last October: What's Not in the News:

HEADLINE NEWS!!!! Taiwan gov't tipped off by Spain in 2009could be something wrong with the oil! Or adulterated oil company executive appears in court and is unrepentant. Defense Ministry to seek compensation for suspect oils

The oil scandal is so useful. The oil companies are scapegoated for all the food sins of Taiwanese firms, the meat packed with antibiotics, the fraudulent organic food, the pears from Dongshih sold as Lishan pears, the rice noodles that aren't rice...

and when was the last time you read an article on the wiretapping issue? Gone from the news. Never mind the stagnant incomes, the capital gains tax, the land tax... modern Establishment media is so useful, if it didn't exist, it would have to be invented.

We just had an oil scandal a month ago. This one is bigger. One of the firms involved is the well-known brand Wei Chuan, which is part of the same conglomerate as Ting Hsin. Once again, the KMT news organ:

On October 9, Wei resigned as chairman of three companies under the Ting Hsin International Group, i.e., Wei Chuan Foods Corporation, Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co., and Cheng-I Food Co., Ltd.

In fact, before Wei announced the suspension of Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co. (頂新製油) and Cheng-I Food Co., Kaohsiung City’s Department of Health had already ordered that the production lines of two companies be suspended pending further investigation.

Wei Chuan ejected itself from the last scandal (Oil Theatre) by yanking products from the shelves, but can't do anything about this one.

Apple Daily has been featuring angry and potentially explosive anonymous letters from the Angry Citizen, as the Taipei Times reports:

The two top government leaders’ response to the scandal was also published in yesterday’s issue of the Chinese-language Apple Daily, in which Ma said: “It only hurts our feelings, not our bodies,” and Jiang said: “Like every one of you, I’m worried about food safety, so in my home, we use only imported olive oil.”

“The responses from both of you to these incidents have flabbergasted the public, hurting not only their feelings, but also their physical health,” the citizen said.

The citizen went on to accuse the government of not doing enough to punish law-breaking businesspeople and not alleviating people’s concerns about food safety in Taiwan.

The citizen expanded their complaints to the government’s missteps over the past few years in terms of economic development, social order, labor rights and information security.

The interesting thing here is the last paragraph. The last go-round of tainted oil didn't seem to have the power to make a political impact, but like Angry Citizen, people are connecting the dots. Rex How, the former Ma government advisor turned sane, has called for a boycott of the Ting Hsin group.

Former national policy adviser Rex How (郝明義) yesterday urged Taiwanese to boycott media subsidiaries of Ting Hsin International Group, including recently established 4G mobile provider Taiwan Star Telecom and possible acquisition cable TV operator China Network Systems (CNS), over the embattled conglomerate’s involvement in a series of food safety scandals.

How said that most of the group's revenues come from its China business (China suspended imports of its oil) so the boycott some are calling for won't have much effect. The government made its usual promises to crack down... but remember, there's an election next month. Will this affect the election? If Angry Citizen keeps filling Apple Daily's front page with the shameful state of the government's regulation of the food processing industry, it just might. People are angry here.

Yet, it's not like food scandals are happening in a vacuum. Everything is this way in Taiwan, from the corner-cutting in construction to the widespread tax evasion to the blithe neglect of bad drivers to the enormous underground economy, with its factories, retail establishments, hotels, and banks, all illegal. We all participate in it, and we all take advantage of it. Does the public want to see this paradise of lax legal enforcement curtailed, have it own behavior inspected?

I doubt it.
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Daily Links:

• The sheer awesomeness of this error demands respect:

  The People’s Republic of China on Taiwan celebrated its 103rd anniversary of independence this week with a special reception ceremony and concert at the St. Kitts Eco Park in Sandy Point

• Ben G at CPI blog on Taiwan's Digital Democracy
• Aussie Academic calls for Australian support for Taiwan against Chinese hegemonic drive
• Synapticism: A trip to the misty mountains of Lugu (images)
• Party paid for voters to vote in 2008 election.
• Lee Guan Yew of Singapore says Taiwan's annexation to China is inevitable. 
• Ninth national park to open in Penghu
• Rule of Law in Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan
• Chinese skip Hong Kong, vacation in Taiwan instead.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Oil Theatre, Act II, Scene 1

A couple of pontoon rafts and a circular corral full of wood on the Tsengwen Reservoir.

I leave for a few days on a bike ride and look what happens! The oil scandal widens. I should have left for a week, probably the entire food processing industry would have been implicated...

On Tuesday I was hardly surprised to see that the bad oil sales had been going on for 13 years, according to reports on the front page of the Liberty Times. Apple Daily, always quality, that same morning had the nude photo club taking nude pictures on the metro on its front page.

A Hong Kong firm has now been busted selling oil for animal consumption as oil for human consumption to Chng Guann, the firm that had been caught buying oil from underground oil factory and sending it up the food chain. The underground factory owner won't be a big enough scapegoat for this, I'm afraid the head of Chang Guann will have to go. No worries, some family member will take over the firm and life will go on for all. Leaders after all exist solely to be scapegoated.

News reports revealed that small vendors are not required to report their waste oil volumes. Since waste oil can be re-used, this represents a profit that has no traceable origin, a situation tailor-made for abuse. The legislature is now being urged to draft a bill and get it passed quickly, before this affects the Chinese tourism industry as some fear. Once the bill is in place and the public reassured, then things can go on as before.

The government is even implementing batch by batch oil inspection of oil coming in from Hong Kong. For a while, anyway.

There's a context that someone on the pan-Green side needs to draw out and scream and yell about, and the government likely wants to suppress, which is why they moved so fast on the oil from Hong Kong, I suppose. Recall that the Ma government's proposed Free Economic Pilot Zones will be letting Taiwan firms import raw materials and ingredients from China duty free, processing them, and then selling them as "Made in Taiwan". This is an obvious move by the Ma government to destroy the brand value of the Made in Taiwan label and increase dependency on China. But the faked oil from Hong Kong serves as a reminder that what comes out China is untrustworthy crap. It wouldn't surprise me if the authorities moved with extra speed to put this to rest before someone makes the connection...
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Oil Theatre

Tea farms outside Shijhuo.

One of the things you get used to when you live in Taiwan is periodic hand-wringing about the state of the food supply after the periodic discovery that Someone Is Cheating. In this case the Big News is that a supplier to a major firm was using totally tainted oil....

Police and prosecutors also said two underground factories were busted on suspicion of selling processed waste oils - collected from cookers, fryers and grease traps - including to one that supplied leading food oil manufacturer Chang Guann Co. Another factory allegedly recycled grease from leather processing plants for oils used in animal feeds.

Officials said that Chang Guann then sold the oils on to at least 235 companies, including a number of leading brands, as lard-based cooking oils. They include food giants Wei Chuan, Chi Mei and Taiwan Sugar.

The Taipei Times added:

Aside from Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業) — which immediately pulled 12 pork floss and meat paste products from stores on Thursday night after the food scare came to light — a number of household names are on the list of affected products, including state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖); food and seasonings manufacturer Ve Wong Corp (味王); Chi Mei Frozen Food Co (奇美食品); Sheng Hsiang Jen Foods Co (盛香珍食品); Gourmet Master Co (美食達人) — which owns the bakery and coffee chain 85oC (85度C); and Haw-Di-I Foods Co (好帝一食品) — which operates the popular barbecue sauce brand Bull Head (牛頭牌).

Also on the list is breakfast store Good Morning (早安美芝城); restaurant chain Wu Wha Ma Dumpling Home (五花馬); Magie du Levain (樂金食品) — which serves as the bakery for Hi-Life convenience stores (萊爾富); 137-year-old pastry chain Yu Jen Jai (玉珍齋); Lee Hu Cake Store (李鵠餅店) — a Keelung-based bakery store founded in 1882; and Tzu Wei Chen Food Co (滋味珍食品) — the former name of Black Bridge Foods (黑橋牌食品).

“The 235 firms combined bought a total of 51,981 cartons of fragrant lard oil manufactured by Chang Guann between March 1 and Sunday. Fifty-five of the companies are based in Greater Kaohsiung, 30 in Greater Tainan and 21 in New Taipei City,” FDA Director-General Yeh Ming-kung (葉明功) told a press conference in Taipei.

The best part of this is the prosecution. How much bail would you set for this serial poisoner? Well, I'm sure whatever number you picked, it was higher than the local prosecutors:

Kuo Lieh-cheng (郭烈成), 32, [underground oil company owner] was arrested after the scandal broke and was released on bail of NT$50,000 (US$1,672) on Thursday. Prosecutors filed a request with the court on Friday to detain him again, since it was discovered that he had withdrawn his total savings of NT$860,000 after he was released on bail on Thursday.

How about that? Bail equals one month's salary for a high school teacher. It's like they are begging him to flee. If he flees, he can't testify that everyone in the supply chain knew what was going on, and he can then be scapegoated by everyone. And the big brands can keep their brand images intact. Which is the most important thing, of course.

They don't teach you in B-school that one of the most important functions of supply chains is laundering. By the time that toxic oil climbed up out of the underground factory and into cans of Wei Chuan meat or croissants at 85C, it had been laundered by being turned over through four or five companies and had become good oil. Yet down at the bottom of the supply chain everyone had to know what was going on. The people who bought from the underground factory had to know what they were getting, because that is the nature of the System -- everyone knows what is going on, but no one talks about it or does anything. But because the underground factory owner will be blamed, everyone else will escape blame and the System will continue, intact. Periodic jail terms for underground factory personnel are just the cost of doing business for the System, and anyway it won't affect shareholders and CEOs who (it goes without saying) buy all their food imported.

Langdon Winner noted decades ago in Autonomous Technology that this laundering effect of distance is inherent in big technosystems (like supply chains) -- the people at top have deniability since they are too distant from the front lines ("we don't know what's going on down there") while the people at the bottom are only following orders. The System just moves forward, autonomously, leaving its bewildered, unknowing victims in its wake.

The whole thing should be shut down, from the grease factory to the CEOs of the big firms who were too lazy to properly test their oils, and everyone carted off to jail. But one of the ways our criminal justice system protects criminals is that only the people at the bottom will be held responsible -- individuals are held responsible, but structures? Never.

There's not much else to say. I'd like to say this will trigger change, but it won't. This kind of problem is fundamental to the System, accentuated by the fact that Taiwan must import almost all of its edible oils and fats. The oil company will shut down, move to a new location and re-open to do the same thing. Or some other underground oil company doing the same thing will take the business. In a few months everything will be back to normal, and the public and media will be haring off after the next big thing....

Really, I don't even know why I am writing this post.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

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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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

What's not in the news

Ferret Badger roadkill.

When human groups divide and become fragmented, during a period of malaise and conflicts, they may come to a point where they are reconciled again at the expense of a victim. Observers nowadays realize without difficulty, unless they belong to the persecuting group, that this victim is not really responsible for what he or she is accused of doing. The accusing group, however, views the victim as guilty, by virtue of a contagion similar to what we find in scapegoat rituals. The members of this group accuse their "scapegoat" with great fervor and sincerity. More often than not some incident, whether fantastic or trivial, has triggered a wave of opinion against this victim, a mild version of mimetic snowballing and the victim mechanism.

HEADLINE NEWS!!!! Taiwan gov't tipped off by Spain in 2009 could be something wrong with the oil! Or adulterated oil company executive appears in court and is unrepentant! Defense Ministry to seek compensation for suspect oils!

The oil scandal is so useful. The oil companies are scapegoated for all the food sins of Taiwanese firms, the meat packed with antibiotics, the fraudulent organic food, the pears from Dongshih sold as Lishan pears, the rice noodles that aren't rice...

...and when was the last time you read an article on the wiretapping issue? Gone from the news. Never mind the stagnant incomes, the capital gains tax, the land tax... modern Establishment media is so useful, if it didn't exist, it would have to be invented.
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Daily Links:

• Econ growth forecast downgraded to 2.31%
• Taiwan seeking observer status at climate meeting
• MOFA changes mind, is more generous with aid to the Philippines
• Editorial in TT explains how Ma plans to change KMT charter to hang on to power as Chairman in event KMT does badly in 2014 elections. Remember when they changed the charter so he could run for President? 

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

The Uses of Scandal: Edible oils

Model airplane fliers in southern Taichung city.

“Coincidence was a concept he did not entirely trust. As someone who had spent his life exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate emblems and ideologies, Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. The connections may be invisible, he often preached to his symbology classes at Harvard, but they are always there, buried just beneath the surface.”

Wouldn't ya know it? Just as (1) the President's pet prosecutor is facing indictment for leaking secrets in a prosecution case to the President and (2) the President is trying to shove a major services agreement through the legislature and (3) the President is trying to wipe egg off his face after attempting but failing to destroy a political rival, a major food scandal breaks out. What a break for the President, eh?

FocusTaiwan presents the raw data:

Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co., a major edible oil supplier and subsidiary of the Ting Hsin International Group, was ordered Sunday to recall 21 of its oil products that used adulterated ingredients.

The Pingtung County Public Health Bureau ordered Ting Hsin Oil & Fat to recall 21 of its products that contained adulterated oils from Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co., the company at the heart of an edible oil scandal that has shaken Taiwan.

The products were sold under the brand of Wei Chuan Foods Corp., another subsidiary of the Ting Hsin Group and one of Taiwan's oldest food companies. All Wei Chuan-brand edible oils are produced by the Ting Hsin unit in Pingtung.

Ting Hsin Oil and Fat said Chang Chi oils were also used in its handmade soaps and lighting oils, according to a list of products containing Chang Chi oils provided by the company.

The Pingtung Public Health Bureau will fine Ting Hsin Oil and Fat between NT$30,000 (US$1,020) and NT$3 million because the Pingtung County-based oil supplier failed to provide the list immediately when Pingtung health officials visited it on Oct. 27-28.

The company did admit at the time that it had purchased olive oils and grapeseed oils from Chang Chi in July and September, and health officials seized more than 200 192-kilogram barrels of those oils Ting Hsin Oil and Fat still had in stock.

Wei Chuan is a major major brand in Taiwan, with a strong reputation for quality. This is going to hurt. There are so many threads here that this scandal touches on: food security (all of Taiwan's cooking oils are imported), food regulation (what is that?), corporate impunity (punishment? What punishment?), corporate corruption (of course it is killing its customers, it's a large corporation, isn't it?), and food scandals as background noise (going back a long way -- Yu-cheng mass poisoning incident). Food scandals are a way of life here.

But it's always more fun to play the "what's missing from this equation?" puzzle game because the politics of reporting are known by what is omitted as well as what is reported. FocusTaiwan reported earlier:

Shiu confirmed that of the 7,619 tons of crude cottonseed oil imported into Taiwan since last year, Chang Chi had imported nearly 40 percent of it and the rest went to Flavor Full, which like Chang Chi is based in Changhua County.

If you keep trolling for cottonseed oil and Taiwan on the internet, you soon come to ETaiwan news' report (read it, fascinating discourse on how to adulterate food) which will tell you that the source of the oil was China. But if you look at FocusTaiwan's pieces on the scandal, as far as I can see China is not being reported as the source of the oil. I mean, it's oil from China. Is it really even cottonseed oil? By keeping China out, the story about the edible oil scandal does not become a story that is also about Taiwan's connections with China, which might affect the services industry pact, as well as highlight the island's rapidly expanding dependence on China for cheap food.
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Irritant watch: Pork strikes the US-Taiwan relationship

Lunch yesterday.

Well, as predicted by many, including this blog, US ractopork is now becoming an issue in US-Taiwan relations. Another useful irritant. The China Post reports:

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) denied a request to approve ractopamine-containing pork imports during yesterday's bilateral trade talks with the United States, which said it will broach the topic again.

The seventh round of Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) talks opened yesterday in Taipei after a six-year hiatus.

During the talks, U.S. negotiators pressured Taiwan to rethink its ban on pork imports containing ractopamine, a leanness-enhancing feed additive.

Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis, who headed an interagency U.S. delegation, “underscored his request that Taiwan's food safety measures — including those relating to meat exports — are based on science and consistent with international standards,” according to a statement released by the Office of the United States Trade Representative after the talks.

The MOEA turned down the request, saying that Taiwan will continue to “separate permits for importing beef and pork.”

Last year, the Cabinet removed a ban on U.S. beef containing ractopamine, after assuring the public that Taiwan's pork ban won't also be removed by default.

Lessee.... Taiwan wants US troops to die for Taiwanese if China invades Taiwan... but won't buy US pork.

US pork shipments to Taiwan were heavily impacted by the US use of ractopamine. The US wants to ship pork to Taiwan but wants to include toxic substances banned in over 100 countries. I've got a great idea -- stop producing pork with toxins in it and trying to ship it to Taiwan! Regain your markets, improve health. Win-win! Naw, that's too intelligent.

The hypocrisy never stops, because anyone who has ever studied the production of pork in Taiwan can only laugh at the idea that Taiwan is defending its food safety. The real problem is that production of pork in Taiwan is big business. This Canadian government report lays out some of the issues:

• In 2009, Canada overtook the United States as the largest source of Taiwanese pork imports by weight, with 38.6 thousand tons worth of pork imported from Canada that year.
• "Canadian packers provide better pork specifications and Canadian trimmings seem to be more competitive in quality than U.S. products. Canadian pork producers are benefiting in the wake of the U.S. pork ractopamine issue as they move to satisfy demand for pork in Taiwan" (U.S. Meat Export Federation, 2008).
• Rising grain prices have negatively affected Taiwan's pork production and resulted in increased reliance on imports. This reliance on imports is expected to compound overtime (USDA, Exporter Guide, 2008; ,USDA Taiwan Livestock and Products, 2006).
• ....recent troubles faced by domestic producers create opportunities for increased foreign imports. A number of Taiwanese hog operations have closed, following a surge in grain prices that began in 2007. A reported 756 farmers exited the industry and the number of pigs was reduced by 440,000 (U.S. Meat Export Federation, 2008).
• Pork is a very important commodity in Taiwan's food supply and constitutes the largest portion of domestically produced meat, at 59% of the total.
• Taiwan has a larger import market for poultry and beef than it does for pork, but not for lack of domestic demand. Rather, it is the larger capacity of domestic pork production that makes it less important as an import relative to poultry or beef.
• Taiwan imports pork largely to offset shortfalls in its own domestic production. 
• Pork is the largest single source of protein in the Taiwanese diet. It is also an important source of Vitamin A and Iron

It should be added that pork has important religious and cultural significance in Taiwan. Everyone has seen the offerings of pigs at temples or the God Pig competition. Pigs are also key symbols in local culture, and were used to represent the KMT in protests during the Martial Law era. When you mess with pork, you mess with the Taiwan identity.

Taiwan used to export pork, but the hoof and mouth disease outbreak here in the 1990s killed the export industry. Rising grain prices will probably continue to reduce output here in Taiwan. Rising grain prices... shudder... here's the outlook for 2013.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Ractopork coming to a supermarket near you?

There's been much commentary on Taiwan this month from the Heritage and Brookings, both of which hosted Taiwan-related events. Rupert Hammond-Chambers, head of the US-Taiwan Business Council, opined that the Ma Administration should be announcing soon that FTA agreements with major trading partner Singapore and also with New Zealand should be finalized soon. Good news, if true.

He and other speakers at the Heritage Foundation mentioned that, in the context of the TIFA trade talks between the US and Taiwan, the issue of ractopork should be easily solved and the talks moved forward (remember, the TIFA talks are more like discussions about having talks). Hammond-Chambers said that the local papers are inflating the issues and are too parochial. I wonder if the US side really understands: (1) The beef issue was artfully used by the Ma Administration to irritate relations with the US. Pork is absolutely central to Taiwanese cooking -- the word meat in Chinese, by default, means pork. US ractopork imports may well be even more politically unpopular than ractobeef, which makes them a perfect tool for the Ma Administration to continue its policies of irritating Washington. (2) There are few local beef producers, but a myriad of local pig farmers and slaughterhouses. The political clout of the pork industry is great, and the local KMT patronage systems need those farmers to provide votes for its rural representatives.

Against this, as other writers noted, since The Racto Beef of Death^© was admitted, US ractopork and other pork products should be admitted as well. Under the WTO agreements, once ractopamine containing products are admitted, all such products must be admitted. Perhaps the US side is counting on this to force the Ma Administration's hand when it says things should go smoothly.

In any case, whatever happens, the hilarious disconnect between the health claims in the expected public protests over incoming US ractopork and the abounding silence over the healthiness of local pork will no doubt provide much fodder for us post-starved bloggers.

More on Brookings tomorrow....
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Daily Links:

• Don't worry, the interviewee is actually quite critical of the Ma Administration and probably politely agreed with the idea that Ma's peace plan could help.
• Full text of H.R. 419: Taiwan Policy Act of 2013
• Dean Cheng at the latest Heritage Foundation soiree on Taiwan noted that the vaunted Pivot of Obama is, like everything else that fraud does, simply words. The deployments don't reflect it. As I've said, the Pivot is just more of the usual Obama practice of scattering words like pixie dust over the trouble waters of discourse in order to calm them, without actual commitment of resources or policy change. Here is a similar piece from Cheng in Aug of last year.
• Policemen performing duties may be videotaped.
• Chinese expansion of its land links with central Asia is causing all sorts of political tensions.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

BREAKING: Legislature Allows Ractobeef

AP reports:

Taiwan’s legislature has passed a bill to lift a ban on U.S. beef that contains small amounts of a growth additive.

The bill was passed Wednesday. It will allow Taiwanese to import U.S. beef containing minimal traces of ractopamine, a feed additive for creating lean meat.

Lifting the ban will remove a major irritant in Taiwan-U.S relations. Despite shifting its recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, the U.S. remains Taiwan’s most important foreign partner. It has been pushing for a removal of the ractopamine ban as a precondition for progress on trade talks.

The President has been successful in getting the legislature to accept the onus of permitting US ractobeef.

The Codex Commission undercut the position of the island's politicians when it determined that small amounts of ractopamine would be permissible, meaning that they could not cite the UN to say that no ractopamine was permitted in denying the US on the issue. Let's see what issue the KMT cooks up next to keep a burr under the saddle of US-Taiwan relations.

The US has won. Let us see how magnanimous it can be in victory. We can haz trade dealz now? But the US did not mention any trade deal in its response.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Foreign Relations Irritant Watch =UPDATED X 2=

Waiting for the bus in Hoping Village in the hills north of Dongshih.

Will the ractobeef irritant in Taiwan-US relations soon pass into history? The Codex Alimentarius Commission surprisingly voted to establish minimum residue levels for ractopamine in meat.

Last night, the Executive Yuan learned that the draft MRLs proposed by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which serves as a scientific advisory body to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the WHO and the Codex Alimentarius Commission — the international food standards body — were ratified at the 35th Codex Alimentarius Commission meeting in Rome this week.

In 2004, the JECFA recommended MRLs of ractopamine of 10 parts per billion (ppb) in muscle and fatty tissues, 40ppb in livers and 90ppb in kidneys of cattle and pigs.

The government learned that the US called for a vote on the adoption, deviating from normal practice, in which food-safety standards are decided by consensus.

Opposition parties, including the DPP, had been calling for the government to wait on the decision of the CAC. Now everyone has the face-saving decision they need to change their positions. What new irritant will be manufactured for US-Taiwan relations? No need, for as an analysis article in the TT notes:

Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have privately expressed their reluctance to vote on the amendment and are hoping that in the wake of his falling poll figures Ma will now change his mind about pushing it through the legislature, Chen said.

In addition, Ma’s low approval ratings mean that he lacks the necessary popular mandate relax the ban on ractopamine by an executive order, Chen added.

Yes, if Ma too politically weak to issue an executive order, and the KMT is too shell-shocked by the Lin scandal to move on the ractobeef issue. What a coincidence that, once again, nothing can be done for another long while. UPDATE: EU slams this decision. In my crystal ball I see more delay and deferral.

Meanwhile, new drama unfolds in the Senkakus, where "activists" from "Taiwan" are out there staking a claim to the islands. The TT says:

Members of the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said they did not see the Chinese flag during a controversial visit to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) on Wednesday by members of the Chunghua Baodiao Alliance.

The alliance’s executive director, Huang Hsi-lin (黃錫麟), and others on Wednesday set sail for the Diaoyutai Islands in an effort to draw attention to Taiwan’s claim of sovereignty over the archipelago, but allegedly brought along the national flag of China.

First you have to shuffle through the mixed up reportage -- the Senkaku Islands mess does not stem from World War II claims as the TT wrongly reports -- Chinese and ROC maps and texts confirm the Senkakus as uncontroversially Japanese until about 1970 -- but from the potential for oil announced for the area in the late 1960s, and it is the ROC, not "Taiwan" that claims the islands. One would expect that the pro-Taiwan paper would clarify these claims, especially since conflating the ROC with Taiwan is a prime goal of KMT political indoctrination tactics.

Just to make sure this particular burr under the Japanese saddle was properly sharp, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei then re-iterated "Taiwan's" claim to the Senkakus and ignored Japanese protests.

Taipei, July 4 (CNA) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Taiwan's sovereignty over the disputed Tiaoyutai Islands Wednesday amid reports that Japanese authorities demanded that a Taiwanese boat leave waters around the islands in the East China Sea.

"Taiwan has refused to accept a protest lodged by Japan over the incident," Steve Hsia, deputy director-general of the ministry's Department of Information and Cultural Affairs, said in a telephone interview Wednesday morning.

Hsia confirmed that a Taiwanese boat was operating near the Tiaoyutais, which he described as an "inherent" part of Taiwan.

Note the use of the term "Taiwan" there, repeated to make sure that locals hear that the Senkakus are part of "Taiwan" instead of the "ROC". And note the deliberate insult to Japan. Just keepin' those irritants fresh and painful?

UPDATE: Phoenix TV has film of the PRC flag the Taiwan Coast Guard said it didn't see, as maddog points out. How could they have missed that, especially since the person who waved it convened a press conference to discuss his actions?
UPDATE II: Haha WSJ has the PRC flag wavers' tale of how he grabbed the wrong flag. Yeah right.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

The Impotence of Being Earnest

"And Ser Lyn Corbray?"
The candlelight was dancing in his eyes. "Ser Lyn will remain my implacable enemy. He will speak of me with scorn and loathing to every man he meets, and lend his sword to every secret plot to bring me down."
That was when her suspicion turned to certainty. "And how shall you reward him for this service?"
Littlefinger laughed aloud. "With gold and boys and promises, of course. Ser Lyn is a man of simple tastes, my sweetling. All he likes is gold and boys and killing."

Ractobeef. So useful, if it didn't exist, it would have to be invented.

The Taipei Times today reported again that the KMT legislative caucus wants the executive branch -- that is, the branch led by President Ma, who is also Chairman of the KMT -- to end the beef impasse by issuing an executive order permitting US ractobeef into Taiwan.....

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday demanded that the executive branch “do its bit” to resolve the dispute over a ban on imports of US beef containing ractopamine residues — the latest in a string of moves over the issue faced by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.

Ma on Friday night instructed the party to push for a provisional legislative session to pass an amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) which would relax the ban. This came after the legislative session ended without a vote on the bill because of an opposition boycott.

Let's see... Ma wants the legislature to do it, the legislature wants Ma to issue the order. Neither party wants to... everyone is so earnest in their criticism of the President:

“We already set the scene for the Executive Yuan to get the issue resolved by an executive order” at Thursday’s caucus meeting, KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) said. “Why is the Executive Yuan throwing the ball back into our court?”

Chen said the legislature “had already paid a hefty price” over the US beef issue, as the political confrontation had provoked criticism over chaos in the legislative body and legislative inefficiency.

...with some hacks on Ma:

KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said “an aura of passivity and inactivity” has pervaded the caucus as a result of “misguided [government] policies.”

Tsai agreed with the DPP’s description of Ma as a “lame duck” president, saying that lame-duck signs “have been surfacing.”

The pro-KMT China Post's piece on Saturday, Ma Distressed Over Failed Beef Vote, gave the President's very earnest side of things....

The president is “regretful and distressed” that opposition lawmakers have paralyzed the Legislative Yuan, said Fan Chiang.

Opposition lawmakers have paralyzed the Legislative Yuan. Yeah, right. As the China Post's thumbnail history observes, this has been going for months (years actually)...

For months, Ma has actively lobbied for legislators to pass amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) that would open Taiwan's borders to U.S. beef containing ractopamine.

But the Executive Yuan is not considering the use of executive order to force open borders to beef, said Executive Yuan spokesman Hu Yu-wei (胡幼偉) yesterday.

Earlier, Premier Sean Chen had told reporters that an executive order is a legal option, but that revising law through the Legislature is the “most safe way” to resolve the impasse.

The legislature has been punting the beef issue around for months. The legislature is paralyzed. And Ma? He's been distant, arrogant, mismanaging... the TT analysis:

Ma’s critics describe him as a stubborn and arrogant politician who lacks communication and negotiation skills, both as president and KMT chairman, and the traits have taken a toll on his leadership within the party at the beginning of his second term, as KMT lawmakers brush off the government’s attempts to seek unanimous support from the party caucus for reform proposals.

To call for party unity, Ma attended the KMT’s caucus meeting on June 7 and asked party legislators to ensure that the bill on US beef pass the legislature by the end of this legislative session.

However, the caucus meeting, held to strengthen communication between the executive branch and legislative caucus, lasted only an hour. Ma left the room immediately after making a speech, without listening to lawmakers’ responses.

Ok, let's tote up the score. Legislature paralyzed. Beef dominating the headlines. Each side blaming the other. Each side capable of independent action that could easily resolve the impasse. Neither side moving.

It's all a game, folks.

The KMT doesn't want this resolved. If the President wanted a resolution he could just issue an executive order and be done with it. Rather, the party leadership wants this impasse. This is all theatre designed to distract and annoy. If the legislature isn't doing something, well, then it isn't doing anything about the two most important near-term items it should be looking at: the capital gains tax (when was the last time you heard anyone talking about that?) and the land value assessment that hasn't been raised since 1987 (totally vanished from the discourse). That latter item is crucial; it has made land into a tax shelter for the wealthy. Addressing these issues is critical for reversing the upward wealth redistribution in Taiwan. Now neither of these things are on the legislative agenda and more importantly, neither is appearing in the media, which, in its best Golden Retriever style, is focusing on beef pant beef pant beef pant beef pant. Woof!

And the DPP lent a hand with this boycott, tying things up for another five days and ensuring nothing got done. It must have been difficult for Ma to keep a straight face when he was hacking on the DPP for engaging in a boycott, which was exactly what he wanted.

If the DPP wanted to screw the KMT, they should have forced a vote and then moved on to the really important stuff like capital gains, water, or energy policy. Make the KMT look like what it is: the party of the 1%. Remind the public what's really at stake.

Ma and the KMT are just playing a game to make sure that once again, nothing gets done. Four more years of this to look forward to! As a special bonus, this will exasperate the Americans and weaken US support for Taiwan. It is hard for me to interpret this as anything other than a key goal of the pro-China KMT Administration. Don Shapiro of AmCham pointed out the importance of beef in pissing off American Taiwan supporters in a piece for Brookings back in Feb:

Although it considered itself well-versed on the beef issue, an American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei delegation that visited Washington last autumn was still surprised by the vehemence of the criticism of Taiwan it heard from American officials on the subject. One high-level official described Taiwan flatly as “an unreliable trading partner,” for example, while another said the disagreement over beef had “cast a pall” over the entire bilateral relationship. Beef had taken on a symbolic importance far out of proportion to its monetary value of less than 1 percent of U.S. exports to Taiwan.

Sure KMT elites know what the effect of dragging their feet on ractobeef on the US must be.

This of course will be with the tacit approval of those in US circles who want Ma to sell Taiwan to China anyway, since they are all doing business with China, and for whom those 23 million democratic Taiwanese are so many impediments to greater mutual profit.

You can be sure that when the beef issue is played out, the scene will shift back to something else intractable and US-related, like the F-16s. I can see the headlines now. Legislature passes resolution calling for F-35s, Demands F-16 Upgrades be Suspended. Or perhaps Ministry of Defense Admits Budget Will Not Cover Upgrades, US Demands Explanation.

To hell with politics anyway....what a lovely day today was here in the Chung, so nice to get out and take some pictures. Facebook was full of photos from people out enjoying the rare sight of blue skies and puffy white clouds after a week or more of torrential rain. Hope you found some free time to hit the trails or the roads today......
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

RactoBeef update

Rain still continues..... it is hard to believe the heavens could hold this much water. Luckily the typhoon looks to be swinging past us moving north a distance from Taiwan, according to info that my man The Bushman has posted on his typhoon blog.

As a number of commentators on the US beef dispute have noted, the real issue isn't beef, but pork. If Taiwan permits dope-laden beef  to come in, then under its WTO agreements it must also permit ractopamine-laced pork to enter as well. That is why pork farmers in Taiwan are up in arms. While Taiwan produces little beef, meaning that US beef hurts few locals, it produces lots of pork, meaning that US pork is real threat to local livelihoods (excellent TT editorial on this very topic). Media reports say Taiwan is now moving toward a formula to finesse this issue:

Taiwan will separate the permits for importing beef and pork if it decides to open its doors to ractopamine-fed meat from the United States, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.

Referring to a set of guidelines announced by President Ma Ying-jeou to partially allow imports of beef containing the leanness-enhancer ractopamine, Steve Hsia, the ministry’s deputy spokesman, said that“our policy is very clear.”

“The guidelines include: A safe level of ractopamine in beef; separating the permits for importing beef and pork; clearly labeling beef imports; and excluding imports of internal organs,” he said in a routine press conference.

Hsia’s remarks came amid media reports that several U.S. lawmakers have been urging U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration to press Taiwan to allow imports of both beef and pork containing ractopamine.

In March, 68 U.S. lawmakers appealed to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack about the restrictions Taiwan has placed on U.S. beef pork imports, which they described as not being based on science.

Isn't it wonderful to hear US government officials from an administration that has done nada on climate change, continued funding abstinence-only sex stupidity, and thinks fracking is a really good idea complaining that somebody else's policy is not based on science?

If the Ma Administration's labeling policy is carried out for real and local restaurants are conscientious about posting the origins of their meat, then perhaps US beef and pork may be avoidable. Haha -- how could I write that last sentence with a straight face? Note also that if ractopamine-laced beef from Uncle Sam's beef factories are permitted into Taiwan, then other nations will be able to dump their ractoburgers in Taiwan as well which means there will likely be no trustworthy beef in Taiwan. Even if other nations don't send ractosteaks here, restaurant patrons will never be able to be sure that they aren't getting US beef even when they order some other nation's products. Although the New Zealand representative office here says ractopamine is illegal in NZ, as do the Aussies, the Taiwan DOH claimed it has found it in NZ and Aussie beef (I seem to remember they backed off this claim but can't find the report UPDATE: maddog has the skinny in comment below, was US beef mislabeled. Thanks man!). Given all the issues with beef, especially US beef, this writer has pretty much stopped eating the stuff.

REF: AIT's 'fact sheet' on ractopamine is here.
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Daily Links:

• Indian police confuse ROC with PRC, arrest 8 Taiwanese
• Chinese Navy "escorts" Indian ship in international waters
• Another CNNGO piece promoting Taiwan, this time 40 foods you can't live without. This looks and smells like a tourism bureau promotion piece.
• JoshinTaiwan with gorgeous lion dance pics from Guqifeng
• ECONOMY: Another think tank drops its growth prediction for this year below 3%. Commonwealth looks at prospects for Taiwan's economy for the next six months. Last week a Commercial Times editorial ripped Ma's economic policies and had a few scary facts to spice it up.
• Excellent piece on the moral failure of Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai and the White Terror
• Laugh yourself silly: China to send 3-500 million people to Africa.

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