The beef war is over. And nobody is the winner.
It started when a protocol consisting of bovine spongiform encephalopathy-related measures for the importation of beef and beef products for human consumption from the territory of the nation represented by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) was signed on October 22.
Let's forget about the mind-boggling official mumbo-jumbo that describes the protocol. Simply put, it's an agreement or arrangement for Taiwan to buy beef and offal from the United States that has a very small probability of causing fatal mad cow disease.
Democratic Progressive Party leaders were all up in arms against the pact, which the Kuomintang administration most likely concluded with the United States in order to resume talks on a trade and investment framework agreement, which is better known in its abbreviated form of TIFA. Like the economic cooperation framework agreement, or ECFA, which Taipei plans to sign with Beijing, the sooner the better, as the TIFA is urgently needed to further improve trade between Taiwan and the United States. In fact, the ECFA should definitely be signed before what is known as the Ten-plus-One free trade zone in Asia comes into being on January 1 next year, the Ten being the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the One the People's Republic.
Both the TIFA and ECFA are open-ended agreements, without which Taiwan will have a very difficult time surviving the tough economic globalization. Of course, some economists believe the further trade liberalization that would be mandated by the two pacts may adversely affect Taiwan's economy. But almost all respected economists estimate that Taiwan would gain more than it would lose when trade and investment are made more liberal.
Many Kuomintang lawmakers have joined their colleagues in trying to take the administration to task for failing to maintain the ban on risky beef and beef products from getting to the Taiwan market from the United States. Together, these lawmakers crossed the party lines in the legislature to whine in chorus, equating the October 22 agreement with the many unequal treaties that the Qing Empire was compelled to sign literally at gunpoint after the Opium War of 1839.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin took the initiative to organize a boycott of all risky American beef, including ground beef and bone-in beef, and such offal as small intestine, tonsils, brain, skull, eyes, spinal cords, vertebral columns, and ganglia. Many mayors and county magistrates soon followed suit, while consumer advocates preached on the very high risks, which William Stanton, director of the AIT in Taipei, brushed aside as one in a billion. The risk is much, much lower than a cyclist getting hit in a fatal accident in Taipei, according to the top American diplomat in Taiwan. It is certainly true.
Administration officials have also vouchsafed the safety of American beef and beef products. Chen Wu-hsiung, chairman of the Council of Agriculture, volunteered to eat whatever is considered risky. Yaung Chih-liang, minister of health, promised an embargo of risky products that are not duly inspected. Even with the protocol in force, he pointed out, Taiwan would be able to ban the importation of any such products if legitimate fear exists about the spread of the deadly disease.Even President Ma Ying-jeou had to come out to declare safety is above any consideration in beef products from the United States. He said he wouldn't oppose a boycott organized by the people.
Well, that ends the beef war.
Taiwan won't try to renegotiate the protocol with Uncle Sam. It would be submitted to the Legislative Yuan not for ratification, because it isn't a treaty, but to be filed for record. People are free to boycott risky American beef and offal, with supermarkets setting aside special shelves for them to warn against involuntary as well as unwitting consumption. That's a caveat emptor.
The outcome is that the administration has lost face for failure to exercise due disaster control; the opposition party did not succeed in startlingly embarrassing the government, for risky beef was first allowed to enter Taiwan while President Chen Shui-bian was in office; and Uncle Sam has unwittingly alienated the people of Taiwan who believe the Americans are their best friends abroad.
There is no need whatsoever for the Americans to estrange the people of Taiwan by helping cattle raisers to earn a few million dollars more a year by selling ground and bone-in beef as well as offal.
Perhaps, official Washington has forgotten an anti-American riot in Taipei in 1957. The riot, triggered by an innocent misunderstanding, toppled the Cabinet of Premier C.K. Yen.
On May 23, an American army tribunal court-martialed Master Sergeant Robert G.. Reynolds on murder charges. Reynolds, accused of shooting to death Liu Tzu-jen, a contraband broker, was acquitted after a not-guilty verdict reached by an all-American jury. Mrs. Liu, the widow, started a sit-in protest against the acquittal in front of the American embassy in Taipei at about 10 a.m. on May 24. Spectators gathered around her, and began calling for retribution. They turned into a mob at about 1 p.m., smashing their way into the embassy compound. Another mob attacked the U.S. Information Service in Taipei. A few protestors were arrested and the mob besieged the Taipei city police headquarters, demanding immediate release of the arrested. When the demand was turned down, the mob attacked the police. The riot was placed under control shortly before midnight. One person was killed, while 10 others were injured, one of them seriously. Some Americans sustained different degrees of injury.
The riot arose due to a misunderstanding by Taipei district prosecutors present at the court-martial as observers. They were not familiar with the process of law in the United States, where an accused man is released on acquittal and public prosecutors cannot appeal. In Taiwan, prosecutors can. So they believed the immediate release of Sergeant Reynolds was unfair and so told that to the people gathering before the U.S. Military Advisory Assistance Group headquarters in Taipei, where the tribunal heard the Reynolds case.
For lack of understanding, Uncle Sam may easily become a target of attack in friendly Taiwan.
（本文刊載於98.11.02 China Post第8版，本文代表作者個人意見）