Taipei, April 20 (CNA) The safety of U.S. beef, especially new items that were added to the import list this month, is guaranteed, the top U.S. official in Taiwan said Tuesday as he tried to diffuse a new controversy over U.S. beef that he contended was created by local politicians.
"What's now being talked about being imported were not part of the 13 items that were excluded specifically by the amendment that was passed by the Legislature Yuan, " said William Stanton, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Taipei Office.
The controversy arose after the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced last Friday that exports of beef products to Taiwan will include bone-in meat, hanging tenders, tongues, penises, testicles, tails, tendons and diaphragms from cattle younger than 30 months and slaughtered on or after April 1, which are seen as having a lower risk of carrying mad cow disease.
Local politicians and the Consumers' Foundation chairman criticized Taiwan's government Monday for not classifying beef diaphragms as a high-risk internal organ and said the decision to allow the imports of the beef part was "unbelievable."
They argued that the new announcement runs counter to a measure passed by the Legislative Yuan in January that banned the import of U.S. ground beef and internal organs and insisted that beef tongue and testicles should also be listed as "internal organs."
Stanton said that in English, all of the items are referred to as offal, while a distinction exists in Chinese between "offal" and "internal organ." Beef tongue, he said, "meets the definition as defined by Taiwan law, by its amendment, and by our agreement, so there really shouldn't be any problem." "It's unfortunate that I think that some people for political reasons are making this into an issue again, and it should not be, " he added.
Stanton said that he himself eats beef tongue, the most talked about item in the controversy, and noted that beef tongue has never being excluded by anyone nor was it excluded by the U.S.-Taiwan agreement.
Taiwan's inspection process is a matter for Taiwan to decide, he said, so long as it is not inconsistent with its agreement with the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. is confident that all its beef is safe and passed inspection in the U.S., he said.
Shen Lyushun, Taiwan's deputy minister of foreign affairs, told legislators Monday that the new measure was "a unilateral action implemented by the U.S." In response, Stanton said he "didn't think the particular statement accurately reflected the foreign ministry's point of view." (By Chris Wang) enditem/ls