Taiwanese lawmakers threw pig organs at their opponents during a parliamentary brawl regarding the ruling party’s decision to lift a ban on U.S. pork imports.
Physical altercations have long been a standard feature of Taiwan’s Parliament and parliaments across the globe, according to the BBC, but members of the Kuomintang opposition party throwing swine viscera at the ruling Democratic Progressive Party is an escalation from food fights, fistfights, and the occasional thrown chair.
The brawl broke out when Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chan was expected to give a regular policy report to lawmakers regarding the pork policy. KMT legislators stopped the premier by dumping bags of pig organs onto the floor, which unfolded into chaos.
Legislators from Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party threw pig guts and exchanged punches with other lawmakers in parliament, in a bitter dispute over easing U.S. pork imports https://t.co/PXQljwzL0O pic.twitter.com/X8WgjZFgOy
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 27, 2020
In August, the DPP approved lifting a ban on U.S. pork and beef that had been given an additive called ractopamine, and instead setting a limit on the acceptable amount of ractopamine residue found in meat cuts, according to the Associated Press. Banned in at least 160 countries around the world, according to Randox Food Diagnostics, the additive is used by U.S. pig farmers to increase the amount of lean meat on hogs.
The move has been met with strong opposition from the KMT and Taiwanese citizens, thousands of whom stormed the streets of Taipei on Sunday to protest the relaxed restrictions. U.S. pork composes a small percentage of Taiwan’s total consumption, but the nationalist KMT party is using the issue to galvanize support.
Despite a number of U.S. pork producers, including major companies such as Tyson and JBS USA, cutting ractopamine from their pork feed, according to Dutch agricultural publisher Pig Progress, the Washington Post reported that Washington repeatedly pressed Taiwanese administrations to lift the ban on meat that contains that additive.
“When you were in the opposition, you were against U.S. pork, now that you’re in power, you’ve become a supporter of U.S. pork,” KMT legislator Lin Wei-chou said of the DPP.
Lin led the group of lawmakers who staged the protest in Parliament. They wore T-shirts that read “oppose ractopamine-pork,” according to the Associated Press.
