U.S. experts warn of fallout from Taiwan's breach of beef protocol

The experts voiced their concerns after Taiwan's Legislative Yuan on Tuesday passed an amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation that targets beef products from countries with documented cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, over the past decade.

It will effectively bar U.S. ground beef, beef offal and other beef parts such as the skull, eyes and intestines from access to Taiwan's market, contravening the bilateral protocol signed in October that set no restrictions to these items.

Richard Bush, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, said he agrees with other American observers that the main impact from the move by Taiwan will be in economic and trade relations.

"But that impact is not trivial if Taiwan is to carry out its goal of economic liberalization with all major partners, as I believe it wishes to do, " said Bush, a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT).

He expressed doubts that the action taken by Taiwan's legislature was the best and only way to address the perceived problem of food safety and urged Taiwan to take other measures to show its commitment to liberalization.

Sharing a similar view, Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, questioned why Taiwan's lawmakers would "choose to alienate the United States, " which he called "Taiwan's most important friend in the world."

"This decision puts us one step farther away from that goal (the signing of a Taiwan-U.S. FTA)," he said.

Lohman, however, disagreed with Washington's decision to retaliate by postponing the resumption of talks with Taiwan under the framework of trade and investment framework agreement (TIFA).

"It is crazy for the U.S. government to assume that talking to Taiwan about removing barriers to their market is a gift. The TIFA talks are mutually beneficial," he said.

He expressed support for Taiwan's plan to send a delegation to Washington to explain the matter.

However, Douglas Paal, who formerly served as a director of AIT's Taipei Office, said if the purpose of the Taiwanese delegation is to seek U.S. understanding for the legislature's decision, Taipei probably will be disappointed.

It would be more positive for Taiwan to discuss with Washington the reopening of its beef market, said Paal, who is a vice president for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Predicting that various negative consequences will soon follow, Paal said U.S. congressmen from beef-exporting states will make Taiwan realize that its action is unacceptable.

Senator Max Baucus from Montana, who wrote to President Ma Ying-jeou Dec. 31 to express his strong disappointment with Taiwan's failure to implement the beef import protocol, said Tuesday that United States will closely monitor how the issue develops.

Baucus called on Taiwan to reverse its course and honor its commitment to the protocol.

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