Just finished tossing out a Moon cake leftover from the Midautumn Festival, as well as some old powdered milk and soda crackers. Figure that's about a $150 NT loss, but ya do what ya gotta do if you want to avoid ingesting the chemical precursor for whiteboard resin.
Got me to thinking, though. Suppose everybody in Taiwan is doing as I am. And let's be conservative: they each toss out $25 NT worth of bread or cookies or what have you. Times 23 million people — that's $575 million NT, or about $20 million U.S. dollars. Add to that losses local businesses are taking due to stock they've had to pull from the shelves. And the losses they're taking because people are too afraid to buy ANY milk-based products, because they can't be certain of the provenance.
I STILL haven't seen estimates of the latter two yet, and I'm reluctant to hazard a guess. Must be mucho dinero, though.
Say, does anybody remember the Senkaku Island incident earlier this year? Back in June, a Taiwanese recreational fishing boat strayed (either unintentionally or deliberately) into Japanese waters and was rammed by a Japanese coast guard vessel. In short order, Taiwan's ambassador was recalled, threats of war darkly uttered, demands for apologies and compensation issued.
After a brief standoff, the Japanese government made an apology and paid reparations.
My point is, that all that fuss was made over ONE fishing boat. One. One boat that was worth a heckuva lot less than what Taiwan's economy has recently lost due to dairy products imported from China. So where are the recalls of Taiwan's negotiators? The threats of war? The demands for apologies and reparations? *
* Rhetorical questions, some of these. (I don't seriously think war should be threatened over this.)
Now, Taiwan's opposition DID ask China's government for apologies and compensation late last month, and the Taiwanese premier seconded the motion a day later.
However, Taiwan's chief negotiator was a little less enthusiastic about the whole thing:
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) said yesterday that the foundation would definitely “communicate” with Beijing if the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) asked the foundation to seek an apology from China over the tainted milk scandal.
When asked whether he would ask his Chinese counterpart — Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) — to apologize or bring up the issue of compensation when he visits Taiwan later this month or early next month, Chiang said he would “exchange views with Chen on issues placed on the agenda.” [emphasis added]
The name's Chiang. " Firebreathin' " Chiang.
Taiwanese brands are suffering losses overseas as well. I personally, have stopped buying Taiwanese products that have milk or milk powder because I don’t know where they source it from. They should list country of origin for all ingredients.