The beef war is now fought on the domestic front

Why? It's election time!

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party isn't spearheading the new war against American beef, which its leaders have claimed is a scheme to poison the people of Taiwan. Taipei signed with the American Institute in Taiwan a protocol on bovine spongiform encephalopathy-related measures for the importation of beef and beef products for human consumption from the United States on October 22.

Opposition leaders have since then stepped aside to let the people, businessmen and even Kuomintang local chief executives organize an islandwide boycott of “unsafe” American bone-in beef and offal, which supposedly has a one in a billion chance to infect consumers with fatal mad cow disease. For their part, these politicians are planning to collect enough signatures to initiate a referendum on such imports from the United States, although they probably know full well it will never be called.

On the other hand, they are turning up the volume of their bickering on the floor of the Legislative Yuan. Earlier this week, they summoned Su Chi, secretary-general of the National Security Council, to the legislature where they billed the agreement as an unequal treaty, like many of those that the Great Qing Empire was compelled to sign after the Opium War of 1839.

Incidentally, Tamsui, spelled Danshui in pinyin, was opened as a treaty port under the Treaty of Tientsin, signed after the Arrow War in 1858. The Arrow was a lorcha, a hybrid vessel with a European hull and Chinese sails; it was owned by a Chinese resident of Hong Kong and registered with the British authorities of the crown colony for protection from coastal piracy, which the Chinese government was unable to suppress. On October 8, 1856, while lying off the city of Canton (Guangzhou) with British flags flying, the Arrow was boarded by Chinese officers for the alleged purpose of searching for one notorious pirate who was said to be aboard. Twelve Chinese crew members were arrested, and in the turmoil the British flag was hauled down. This was the cause of the war.

Su Chi was labeled by opposition lawmakers as Li Lianying, one of the favorite eunuchs of the Empress Dowager, who had ruled China for 48 years until her death in 1908. The lofty title of the empress dowager was awarded to President Ma Ying-jeou, who is alleged to have ordered the beef import protocol signed. She assumed power at the Qing imperial court in Beijing after her husband, the emperor, died in Jehol where he and his imperial family had fled to when a joint Anglo-Franco army was marching on Beijing for a takeover during the Arrow War.

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