United States government officials have expressed exasperation over why Taiwan's Legislative Yuan may revise the Food Sanitation Act Tuesday to ban imports of U.S. ground beef, offals or even beef in bone.
Senior officials of President Ma Ying-jeou's right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government have publically speculated that U.S. President Barack Obama's Democratic Party administration will retaliate against Taiwan's alleged "unilateral abrogation" of the protocol signed Oct. 22 by Taiwan Economic and Culture Representative Office and American Institute in Taiwan to reopen imports of these risky US beef through delaying talks on a long-expected U.S.-Taiwan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) or even by further delays in defensive arms sales.
Such ill-disguised threats aim to blur the truth that this fiasco has been caused solely by the hubris and incompetence of President Ma Ying-jeou's right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and its refusal to respect Taiwan's democratic values of transparency and accountability in the negotiation of this secret pact.
To begin with, the Ma administration misjudged the reaction of Taiwan society over lifting the partial import ban imposed on US beef products by the former DPP government after documented cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (also known as "mad cow disease") in late 2003.
Given the weight of the beef industry in U.S. domestic politics, it is understandable that Washington policy makers are eager to secure re-entry into Taiwan for profitable "beef on bone" products, notably "T-bone" steaks regardless of safety concerns of citizens in the U.S. and abroad.
Indeed, the Ma administration might have been able to secure entry for T-bone steaks from cows which are younger than 30 months and thus almost certainly BSE-free, but the decision to agree to a pact included lifting of the ban on risky ground beef and offals negotiated behind the backs of the Legislative Yuan and even the Department of Health sparked a political firestorm.
Since the former DPP government had the backbone to reject similar demands in 2006, Ma and National Security Council Secretary-General Su Chi, who is widely reported as the key driver of this policy, bear full responsibility.
Ma may have been able to get away with such a gambit a year ago, but the climate of Taiwan politics has changed in the wake of rising public anger over the mishandling of the flood disaster caused by Typhoon Morakot last August and numerous other errors by the Ma government and the setback suffered by the KMT in local elections on Dec. 5.
Recurrent flouting of the principles of democratic transparency and accountability in the Ma administration's decision-making and in cross-strait talks between the KMT and the authoritarian People's Republic of China's ruling Chinese Communist Party has undermined public trust in the restored KMT government, but the secret pact on US beef imports exposed the threat posed by Ma and Su's "black box" habits to the national security and even health of the Taiwan people.
New NSC chief needed
Nevertheless, the U.S. government should react to the Legislative Yuan's action cautiously based on mutual respect for democratic procedures.
Washington should refrain from pretending that the BSE concerns are a "false issue" or using the TIFA talks or defensive arms sales to pressure the Taiwan legislature to accept a secret protocol, whose full content remains unknown even to KMT lawmakers.
Instead, the Obama administration should convene an inter-agency meeting to consider methods to resolve the flap, preferably through renegotiation with the Taiwan government in a manner consistent with democratic procedures.
For its part, the Ma administration should work to prevent any broader impact on other aspects of U.S.-Taiwan relations.
Ma has publically claimed that his efforts to forge peace and dialogue with the PRC regime has also led to the "best U.S.-Taiwan relations for the past 60 years."
If this is the case, Ma's KMT administration should have accumulated enough political capital to persuade Washington not to make any unfriendly gestures toward Taiwan and to renegotiate the pact.
We strongly urge the Ma government to stand upright in talks with U.S. counterparts and refrain from repeating the mistake of carrying out such talks behind the backs of Taiwan lawmakers and citizens and instead publically affirm his commitment to reflect Taiwan's pluralist views in new beef import talks.
Most importantly, Ma should demonstrate his sincerity to correct his mistakes by requiring Su to resign to take full political responsibility.
Su first misled Washington to believe that the Ma administration would have no problems executing the import liberalization thanks to the KMT's three-fourths legislative majority.
The NSC chief compounded his error after the issue exploded into a political crisis by claiming that Washington would impose retaliatory measures against Taiwan if the Legislative Yuan tried to overturn the pact and by arrogantly touting that the KMT government had the right to engage in secret diplomacy by declaring that the protocol was "above domestic law."
What Taiwan needs now is a national security advisor who respects Taiwan's democratic values and principles.
Source: Taiwan News Online - Editorial 2010/01/04
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