Hearing on Japanese foods ends in melee
TAIPEI: The first of three public hearings on whether Taiwan should ease its ban on imports of Japanese food products imposed in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster was cancelled amid shouting, table pounding, and physical altercations.
Hundreds of protesters mobilised by the main opposition Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, (KMT) clashed with police outside the public hearing venue in Taipei. A truck parked outside the venue bore placards calling for President Tsai Ingwen’s resignation.
Participants allowed inside criticised organisers for blocking people outside from entering the venue. One opponent who prepared her own microphone said the public hearings are meaningless because Ms Tsai has the final say on the matter.
In additional to the protest in the morning, the KMT also organised a march in Taipei in the afternoon.
Following the March 2011 disaster, Taiwan banned food imports from Fukushima prefecture and nearby Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi, and Chiba prefectures, and in addition has been conducting random radiation checks on nine categories of imported foods.
The Tsai administration recently formulated a plan to relax the ban in two stages. Under the proposal, Taiwan plans to keep in place its ban on the import of all food products from Fukushima but conditionally allow imports of certain products from the four other prefectures.
The implementation of the first stage of the plan would serve as a reference for the further relaxation of the restrictions in the second stage, possibly about six months later.
Sunday’s public hearing, video conferencing with participants on the outlying Matsu Islands and streamed live on the internet, was the first of three the administration promised to hold after 10 were held across the island last month.
The KMT criticised the Tsai government for holding the 10 hearings in three days, questioning whether it has made a secret deal with Japan.
The administration then decided to hold three more, one in New Taipei on Sunday, another in Kaohshiung in the island’s south on Jan 2 and the third in Taipei on Jan 8.
During Sunday’s public hearing, opponents alleged the event was not organised properly and documents not provided in an appropriate manner.
The organisers decided to cancel the event but allowed participants to voice opinions in the afternoon, calling it a discussion session.
The morning session began with chaos, with participants shouting, throwing documents and pounding and jumping on the tables.
KMT Vice-Chairman Hau Lung-bin argued that Sunday’s public hearing was “illegal” and “meaningless” because the Tsai administration has already planned to ease the ban.
Mr Hau, who initiated a signature drive to endorse a referendum on whether to relax the ban, said the administration is duty bound to explain the possibility of it using the relaxation of the ban as a bargaining chip in exchange for a trade deal with Japan and how such a trade deal would benefit Taiwan.
KMT legislator Wang Yu-min said Chiou I-jen, chairman of the Association of East Asian Relations, Taiwan’s semi-official agency handling the island’s relations with Japan, should have attended the public hearing because he is responsible for negotiating the trade deal.
She also argued the administration is in no position to talk about the government’s plan to ease the ban because it cannot ensure food safety, citing the recent discovery that soy sauce packets subject to the ban entered the country illegally.
Following the discovery, the Executive Yuan, or Cabinet, said before a mechanism is established to ensure the safety of food products imported from the five prefectures and public confidence in the government is restored, easing the ban is not an option.
It also emphasised that the government does not have any set position and there is no timetable set for easing the ban.