Taipei, April 13 (CNA) Lawmakers expressed concern Wednesday that the lingering dispute over American beef imports could jeopardize bilateral relations with the United States.
U. S. officials have stepped up their rhetoric in recent months against Taiwan's partial ban of U.S. beef, which has "seriously eroded" Taiwan-U.S. relations on many fronts, ruling Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Justin Chou said in a session of the Foreign and National Defense Committee of the Legislative Yuan.
Chou specifically referred to a seminar in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, where American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) chief trade representative, Rick Ruzicka, lobbed criticisms at Taiwan’s handling of the dispute. Ruzicka said the beef row is preventing Taiwan from holding a new round of high-level trade talks with the U.S. and causing Taiwan to lose congressional support for continued negotiations.
This comes on the heels of similar critiques in recent months by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, AIT Chairman Raymond Burghardt and AIT Director William Stanton.
"Taiwan cannot make this a 'zero-sum game' because Taiwan-U.S. relations form the backbone of Taiwan's foreign policy, " Chou said.
The two countries had hoped to resume negotiations on the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), an official framework for handling Taiwan-U.S. trade and economic issues, in January. The talks had been suspended since 2007 mainly because of the beef controversy.
Washington decided to postpone the talks again when Taiwan blocked some shipments of U.S. beef after finding the meat contained residues of ractopamine, an additive that promotes leanness in meat. Ractopamine is banned in Taiwan.
The beef dispute has caused other issues to be put on hold, KMT Legislator Shuai Hua-ming said, such as an extradition agreement and a visa-waiver program.
While the U.S. and the MOFA have said the trade dispute and the TIFA talks are separate from these other programs, the beef controversy does hinder bilateral exchange on many fronts, Shuai said.
Shuai added that diplomacy "is an art of give and take" and that it is not worth sacrificing other potential agreements, such as the visa-waiver program and arms sales, over beef imports. He urged the government to resolve the beef dispute quickly.
Tsai Huang-liang, a legislator of the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) , disagreed, saying that the U.S. was "immoral" in using political tools to bully its way into economic gains and that Taiwan needs to protect the health of its nationals.
Meanwhile, in response to questions from the press, Foreign Minister Timothy C.T. Yang said the Taiwan government did establish an inter-agency task force under the Executive Yuan to tackle the issue.
Yang refuted the U.S. claim that Taiwan had violated the beef protocol signed in October 2009, saying that both sides had agreed to respect each other's domestic law.
Yang said Taiwan's position has always been to wait for the conclusion of a meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission in July before reconsidering the issue. The Codex Alimentarius Commission is a United Nations-based body that develops international standards for food, and is expected to set a level for ractopamine at its July meeting.
"At the end of the day, if both sides recognized there's been a dispute, it would further justify the necessity of a bilateral negotiation to smooth things out, " Yang said. (By Chris Wang) enditem/ly