Let’s See How DPP Extricates Itself from Current Predicament (A Commentary)

Let’s See How DPP Extricates Itself from Current Predicament

(A Commentary)

Source: United Daily News

June 15, 2012

The ruling and opposition parties are currently in a fierce tug-of-war over the US beef imports issue. In fact, what the public now wants to see is not how the DPP will escalate the confrontation, but how it can extricate itself from its predicament.

The DPP’s flip-flopping regarding the cross-Strait ECFA (Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement) revealed for all to see the DPP’s true colors. When the DPP first opposed ECFA, it had denounced the ruling KMT for “leaning towards 【Mainland】China and selling out Taiwan” and causing “humiliation.” The DPP had even thrown Molotov cocktails in the streets and bloodied a KMT legislator in the legislative chamber. But when the 2012 Presidential Election approached, all of a sudden the DPP had turned its back on its supporters by saying, “If the DPP should regain power, the central government would continue the preceding administration’s cross-Strait policy” and then “The DPP would be willing to accept the ECFA in toto.” Therefore, the public no longer bothers to pay attention to the ruthless tactics the DPP uses to oppose something. Instead, everyone waits to see how the DPP will humiliate itself in finding a way to back down.

Obviously, it is unwise for the DPP to oppose US beef imports. (1) The Chen Shui-bian administration made a pledge to the World Trade Organization in 2007 that Taiwan would soon accept the importation of US beef, pork and animal offal containing ractopamine. (2) More than 100 countries, including Japan and South Korea, have already accepted imports of US beef containing ractopamine. (3) The Ma Ying-jeou administration has already successfully “retained the ban on imports of foreign pork containing ractopamine residue and excluded animal offal from the list of permitted items for import.” (4) If we continue to ban the importation of US beef containing ractopamine into Taiwan, we will never resume bilateral talks based on TIFA (Taiwan-US Trade and Investment Framework Agreement), not to mention the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). As a result, the DPP is painting itself into a corner and urgently needs to find a way out. As a matter of fact, the DPP’s bark is worse than its bite.

At this juncture, the more the DPP escalates the confrontation and threatens to shed blood, the more the DPP exposes its irrationality and impropriety over the US beef imports issue and the more difficult it will be to find a way to back down while saving face. Will the DPP’s rash behavior prove to be its downfall?

Attachment : none