Comments by "shazmosushi" (@shazmosushi) on "The Geopolitics of Taiwanese Pork Imports" video.

Thanks for the very thorough mini-documentary. I have never heard of controversy around this Ractopamine animal feed additive. Also I have never heard of this United Nations food safety standards body, the "Codex Alimentarius Commission" (if anybody from the United Nations is reading, here's a better name: "UN Food Standards Authority"). Sounds like I need to start watching those industrial agriculture documentaries on Netflix/CuriosityStream or wherever. Now, from your mini-documentary it sounds like there is concern about the quality of the science coming out of the UN commission, due to economic pressure/influence from "big agriculture" firms via the United States government. My advice to Taiwanese politicians and Taiwanese voters is to create a commission of local pre-eminent scientists to independently analyse the science of such questions, release public reports and advise the government. The goal of such a commission would NOT be to covertly implement non-tariff barriers to protect Taiwan's domestic pork industry, but to be above the political partisanship and be the trusted and respected independent arbiter tasked with protecting public health. If American trade negotiators don't like that, then let them complain and ignore them. Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country. The country should only ever make food safety decisions based in science of public health, not because foreign free-trade negotiators were twisting your arm.
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For viewers who enjoy Asianometry, I recommend watching videos by PolyMatter (China), Wendover Productions (Aircraft+Logistics), Caspian Report (Geopolitics), VisualPolitik (Geopolitics), CGPGrey, Johnny Harris (Vice / New York Times video journalist). For more China specific videos, serpentza/laowhy86/advchina has some gold (among lots of clickbait). You may also like Cheddar and Quartz (for random topics), and Newsthink (SpaceX/Tesla/Elon Musk), ColdFusion TV (future tech focused), RealEngineering, CuriousDroid (mostly engineering focused)
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