Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo Credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
THE LAI ADMINISTRATION will soon lift remaining restrictions on food imports from Fukushima disaster-affected Japanese prefectures. This includes Fukushima itself, as well as the prefectures of Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, and Tochigi.
The lifting of remaining restrictions on food imports from these Japanese prefectures follows up on moves by the preceding Tsai administration in February 2022 to lift barriers on food imports from these areas. At the time, the DPP was able to take the political risk of lifting the ban in a position of relative political strength.
The remaining restrictions to be lifted are on products that are gathered from foraging in the wild, such as mushrooms and foraged vegetables, or wild bird or animal meat. The Tsai administration made preliminary moves in the direction of lifting the ban on nuclear energy in 2016, with hearings on the lifting of the ban. At the time, Tsai’s first premier, Lin Chuan, suggested that the ban would be lifted in stages. Yet it would be many years before the Tsai administration saw itself in a position of strength where it could move on the idea. Indeed, in 2018, in a national referendum, the Taiwanese public voted against lifting the food ban.
In particular, the Tsai administration aimed to strengthen economic relations with Japan through the lifting of restrictions on food imports from Fukushima-affected areas. This would be in the hopes of joining the Japan-led regional trade pact of the CPTPP, with Japanese political administrations including the Abe administration having placed a great deal of priority on trying to promote food products from prefectures of Japan affected by the Fukushima disaster.
This proved similar to how the Tsai administration took the political risk of lifting the ban on food imports of ractopamine-treated pork from the US in 2020. This, too, was a stumbling block to closer trade relations with the US, in the hopes of cementing a bilateral trade deal with the US. Yet the Tsai administration taking such political risks with food imports from either the US or Japan was in the hopes that strengthened economic relations would encourage both countries to strengthen political ties with Taiwan, so as to counter the military threat from China.
President Lai Ching-te. Photo credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
The lifting of the ban, however, was especially a political risk for the DPP because this was a reversal of position. It was originally the Ma administration that had proposed lifting the ban on food imports of ractopamine-treated pork from the DPP when it held power, while the DPP opposed this. Yet between holding power and serving as the opposition, both parties traded political positions.
In 2022, the Tsai administration cited that Taiwan and China were the last countries to retain bans on food from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, and Chiba, with the US and Israel having lifted bans the prior year, and Hong Kong and Macau having also eased measures. The Atomic Energy Council emphasized that inspections would continue. Yet pan-Blue-controlled local governments suggested that they would still act to prevent food imports from such prefectures nonetheless, with the Taipei city government suggesting that it may continue to enforce the ban. This time around, similarly, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration has stated that batch inspections of food imports from Fukushima-affected areas will continue.
Two years on, it is less likely that the issue will be as contentious for the Lai administration. Still, it would not be surprising if the KMT still seeks to attack the issue. Namely, the KMT has long been antagonistic toward the prospect of stronger political and economic ties with Japan, not only because of the party’s pro-China stances, but because of its historical animus against Japan going back to the Sino-Japanese War. Yet the KMT’s stance against food imports for Fukushima-affected areas proves somewhat contradictory to the party’s pro-nuclear stance, as part of which the KMT routinely makes the argument that nuclear energy is safe, as attested to by Japan went back to nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster.