Taichung mayor chews out AIT director over US pork imports to Taiwan

You guys are all asking the wrong questions. :pleading_face:

KMT, DPP WHATEVER

Real question should be: What good does this stupid ban do for the Taiwanese people?

Is it worth holding incomes hostage to engage in this silliness?

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Depends on if the US wants to maintain dominance in Asia Pacific.

This “stupid ban” is currently implemented by the EU and over 150 countries.

If the US doesn’t want to give microphones to their allies’ opponents, then they need to conduct proper academic studies to prove it is actually safe for long term human consumption.

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Those are very good questions, but I don’t know the answers. However, this might give some insight:

Paul M. Mozur, “Former U.S. Diplomat Stirs Pot Ahead of Taiwan Vote,” Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2012

I wonder if there might still be some American policy-makers or policy-influencers who still feel that way about Tsai, or about the DPP in general.

That was in 2012. They have been more supportive of DPP since 2016.

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I suppose it depends how much status quo the US want. The KMT now appear to be leaning towards a bit too much status quo.

I’m pretty sure unless money is involved, whatever those American policy-makers were feeling about Xi back in 2012 has changed

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KMT now leans too much towards China, which the US no longer likes.

That’s why I said I hope KMT carry on to the point that the US doesn’t want to tolerate them and eliminates them like they often did to foreign politicians they find problematic.

She’s trying to score political style points. She be all, LOOK, I STOOD UP TO ADOGA for you!!!

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Way too much American exceptionalism here. :joy:

The KMT has eroded its appeal on its own thank you very much. No political SEAL Team Six needed here.

I didn’t say I wanted them killed. They can easily grab KMT by the balls by freezing their assets in America.

So act authoritarian just like China does and freeze assets of people they don’t agree with. Doesn’t put the USA on any high ground there.

There still seem to be some people who feel the way that Douglas Paal (and apparently some people in the Obama administration) felt, although I’m not sure how much influence they have on things:

Stacy Hsu and Evelyn Kao, “Beijing likely to step up pressure on Taiwan post-election: expert” Focus Taiwan (saved in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine), January 14, 2020

I said “political SEAL Team Six”. It was figurative, not literal.

And yeah, the US isn’t going to be freezing the assets of the KMT in America. There is no need. The KMT can try to appeal to the populous on this issue but on core issues, its sun has set.

I don’t think anyone has ever put USA on any high ground. Everyone knows the CIA initiated coups unapologetically when and where deemed necessary.

Exactly right. The primary producers- farmers, ranchers, fishermen, loggers, miners, oil rig workers- always have an image as the rugged backbone of the country; the large-scale marketers behind the scenes use that image to get themselves special treatment in the political process. Witness the imbroglio over fishing right now in the Brexit negotiations- what percentage of GDP is fishing in the EU or Britain?

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Indeed, it looks increasingly like a bunch of fishermen are going to decide the fate of Brexit. It’s incredible, really. Even supporters of no deal Brexit must admit it is a bizarre situation.

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They did. Yes, they didn’t. The mainstream article from yahoo news that I wanted to share has been deleted.
Due to COVID, the restaurants closed. Many farmers were geared towards serving restaurants. Due to regulations the farmers could not divert their product to other markets. Also, the food processing plants closed down if one person was found to be infected. The transportation network broke down leading to empty shelves in some places. There were articles showing farmers killing surplus animals for compost, plowing under crops and dumping milk.
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/494014-five-threats-to-us-food-supply-chains