Gov't faces big challenges after holiday

The Legislative Yuan has ratified a set of revisions to the food sanitation control act, clearly prohibiting imports of beef offal and ground beef from the U.S., and the Consumers' Foundation is poised to launch a second round of endorsement campaign to facilitate the proceeding of the national referendum on U.S. beef imports.

On another front, the U.S. has applied to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for arbitration of the controversy arising from Taiwan's failure to honor the signed protocol on imports of U.S. beef products.

Given these pressing issues, Premier Wu said earlier that the government will move to ask the U.S. to renew negotiations over beef imports from that country in accordance with the revised food sanitation control act as soon as possible.

But the biggest challenge facing the Cabinet is how to reduce the relevant controversies on U.S. beef imports and prevent such controversies from affecting bilateral cooperation in other sectors.

The controversial U.S. beef import issue has made the government realize the importance of conducting communications with the nation's law-making body and the public before proceeding with any other major policies, such as the signing of the proposed ECFA.

Both sides of the Taiwan Straits have already kicked off talks on the ECFA issue. But to accomplish the goal of inking the ECFA in May, as set by Premier Wu, then the government will have to step up negotiations with the Chinese side, and also reinforce communications with the legislature and the public.

Wu once claimed that the government will seek support for the signing of the ECFA from at least 60 percent of the population before the pact is inked.

In related news, Tony Wang, spokesman of the Presidential Office, said yesterday that President Ma Ying-jeou would not refer to Taiwan and China as “the two countries,” while clarifying a press release that used the term a day earlier.

The Liberty Times reported that according to a Presidential Office press release issued Wednesday, the president referred to Taiwan and China as “two countries” when he talked with a visiting U.S. congressman earlier in the day.

Spokesman Wang said, however, that the president has not and would never refer to cross-strait relations as relations between two countries.

Wang explained that according to the Republic of China Constitution, the R.O.C. on Taiwan is a sovereign state and the Chinese mainland is an R.O.C. “area.”

Under this constitutional framework, he said, the R.O.C. does not recognize China as a sovereign nation but “does not deny that in fact mainland authorities are the effective ruling authority in the mainland Chinese area.”

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