With his bizarre comparison between the number of scooter riders killed in Taiwan to mad cow disease statistics, the new U.S. envoy to Taiwan, William Stanton, earned himself the right to be called “cow” in both Taiwanese and Chinese connotations.

The Ma Ying-jeou administration has come under great pressure for its lack of coordination in U.S. beef trade talks resulting in the opening of U.S. beef products to Taiwan. To make the matter worse, local government heads from Ma's Kuomintang (KMT), such as Hau Lung-bin, mayor of Taipei City, Chou Hsi-wei of Taipei County and Jason Hu, mayor of Taichung City, are jumping ship. They plan to ban U.S. beef products with higher threats in causing mad cow disease, such as offal, ground beef and spinal cord.

Under such circumstances, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan's (AIT) comment, as well as the AIT's decision not to re-open negotiations, certainly did not help Ma's administration other than cementing the U.S.' image as the unthinking bully across the negotiation table.

Despite the fact that beef represents only 1 percent of the bilateral trade between the U.S. and Taiwan, the American negotiators have made it a precondition for any trade negotiation. It is seen as a litmus test to whether a country is “friendly” to the U.S. The mass demonstrations in South Korea against its government's decision to re-open U.S. beef imports in 2008, the largest anti-government protests seen in that country in 20 years, had as much to do with anti-Americanism as health concerns.

Some political pundits in Taiwan already regard the “rebellion” by Ma's comrades as either a veiled attempt to thumb Taiwan's nose at the U.S. or a tactic to bargain for the reopen of beef talks.

Members of the opposition Democratic Progress Party (DPP), who generally would jump gladly at any political blunder or unpopular decision Ma makes, are cautious about attacking the U.S this time. Partly because some from the pro-independence camp worry that an anti-American sentiment in the country would drive Taiwan from the U.S. and toward China.

Richard Fontaine, foreign policy adviser to former U.S. presidential candidate John McCain, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that even though an historical thaw of cross-strait tension is welcomed by the U.S., it “should work to ensure that ... economic arrangements [between China, the U.S. and Taiwan] do not become zero-sum in nature.”

On one hand, Fontaine suggested, Taiwan need not put all its eggs in one basket and should try to seek business in the U.S. as well as the 10 ASEAN nations. On the other hand, Washington should expand trade relations with Taipei so as not to permit “Beijing to unduly constrain Taipei's political choices, nor upset the delicate U.S.-China relationship.” Fontaine called for the U.S. to see trade as an “essential tool” of Asia-Pacific diplomacy, even as China is using its economic clout to increase its influence over Taiwan.

In this light, Taiwan is not only a developed nation with 23 million people and the biggest contract chip-maker in the world, it is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle in U.S. foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific.

The U.S. is obviously not seeing this side of the argument. By citing the number of 1,034 deaths in motorcycle accidents in Taiwan last year, Stanton did not simply make an analogy. He also implied that mad cow disease does not concern Taiwan — not because U.S. beef products are safe, but because the island is not statistically significant enough to raise a mad cow worry.

But the Taiwanese people are worrying. A local university student consumed cow dung Thursday in protest of the re-opening of U.S. beef imports. Washington should do something to reassure the Taiwanese people and show its concern to the island as a strategic partner before it is too late. For now, public anger is directed mainly at the Ma administration. Before long it will turn to the other party in the beef talks.