Don't be mad, please

Not just the opposition but quite a number of the ruling Kuomintang are against the agreement, charging the Department of Health and the Council of Agriculture with concluding an unequal treaty, like the ones the Great Qing (Manchu) Empire was compelled to ink at the end of the Opium War of 1839 and thereafter. Even Mayor of Taipei Hau Lung-bin registered his strong objection to the importation of risky beef and beef products. They are all overreacting, however.

For one thing, the protocol isn't an unequal treaty. It wasn't forced upon Taiwan by the American Institute in Taiwan. The representative of the MoD negotiated with her American counterpart on an equal footing.

Of course, opponents may pick faults, accusing her of failing to protect Taiwan's public health against an onslaught of mad cow disease. But the fact is that there won't be any BSE invasion. Specified risk materials are placed under special control. They include the distal ileum of the small intestine, the tonsils from cattle of all ages, the brain, skull, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, vertebral column, and dorsal root ganglia from cattle 30 months of age and older. Offal is a common word for those specified risk parts.

That means the offal can be rejected on import, if some beef dealers really want to buy it from the United States. As a matter of fact, very few, if any, dealers want to import such beef products even from Australia at much lower prices, for the simple reason that Chinese on Taiwan have little taste for them. Have you ever heard of any restaurant in Taipei offering eyes or spinal cords of an ox as a dish to attract clients?

There's no 100 percent guarantee that other less risky beef and beef products won't victimize a gourmet or gastronome. But one has to know that most of the Han Chinese on Taiwan prefer pork to beef, for they believe oxen used to do heavy work in tilling land and therefore shouldn't be slaughtered for their meat. Buddhists — most of the people here think they are — believe in ahimsa, which prohibits killing of any sentient beings, including cattle, swine and poultry. In other words, a very small minority of our people would take the risk of eating beef and beef products that pose any BSE threat.

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