1. Howie2424 on US Beef protests.

This was originally posted on Dave’s ESL Cafe, as part of this thread. 

komerican said
It doesn’t matter that meat older than 30 months are sold in the US. Those are US standards. Korea does not have to follow them obviously.

Those are not US standards they are OIE standards and internationally recognized as the best there are. Again, your argument would be persuasive if Korean law prohibited the marketing of domestic cattle older than 30 months. Do you know this to be the practice here? Do Korean health laws prohibit the consumption of beef from cows older than 30 months? If so please provide me with a link. I’ve been buying beef here for 6 years and have yet to see any information on the label which would indicate the age of the cow at slaughter. I’m guessing Koreans eat as much 30 month+ beef as Americans but I stand to be corrected if you can show me that this isn’t true.

SeoulFinn asked
I keep hearing that OIE says that American beef is safe and even safer than South Korean beef. Anyone have verifiable info about this? Something else than hearsay? I want numbers and official statistics.

Here is some info about the Korean beef industry and its OIE rating.

First of all, the OIE ranks countries’ mad cow risk in 3 categories. “Negligible risk” (the safest ranking), “Risk Controlled” (the next safest) and “Undetermined risk” (the lowest ranking). The US is currently ranked in the second category while Korea is ranked in the third. As to why they are ranked third you can peruse these articles.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2008/05/123_24896.html
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200805/200805200015.html
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200805/200805160027.html
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1622384/

As you will see, Korean testing procedures for mad cow leave a little to be desired, both in terms of their efficacy and frequency. They just don’t meet internationally recognized standards. American testing procedures, though they may not be perfect, do meet the international standard. Notwithstanding this fact, there are tens of thousands of Koreans protesting daily against US beef while consuming Korean beef that may well be just as dangerous, without the slightest objection. As I said in other threads on this topic, it’s this duplicitous approach to the issue that leads me to think that these protests have nothing at all to do with food safety concerns.

Eedoryeong said
Really if people don’t want it on their shelves and they certainly don’t want it hidden in their foods, what business does anyone have telling them they have to accept it, dangerous American diet choices notwithstanding?

No one is saying that Koreans have to eat it or even import it. All the US is saying is that they should lift the import ban that was imposed in 2003 because the beef is now certified as safe by internationally recognized standards. From what we see above about Korean standards, it undoubtedly meets domestic health safety requirements as well. If it’s so unpopular here and it’s true that Koreans feel so strongly about it, the beef will rot on the supermarket shelves and the market will do the talking instead of the protesters.

But you know there’s another aspect of this that keeps getting lost. Korea signed an FTA with the US last year. At that time the parties discussed the safety standards by which US beef would be judged and President Roh said he would abide by OIE standards and if the OIE certified that US beef was safe. he would open up the Korean market. A month later the OIE issued its findings and the US was ranked as a “controlled risk country” which means the US was safe to export meat including meat over 30 months old, but not skulls, spines or brains from cows over 30 months old. The US immediately called for a lifting of the import ban but Roh stalled and left it up to the next administration. All LMB did was follow through on Roh’s agreement.

Now Korea wants to abandon that commitment and impose additional standards for American beef that it doesn’t impose on its own beef industry. I wonder what would happen if the US said they would no longer accept Korean cars for import unless they were equipped with front and side driver/passenger airbags, bulletproof windshields and an ejection seat because “that’s what makes Americans feel safe when they’re buying a Korean car. After all, some of those KIAs were just death traps!” I’m guessing Koreans wouldn’t appreciate that irrational gesture much, yet that is exactly what they’re doing on the beef issue.

Surely if US beef meets domestic and internationally recognized health standards, that should be enough. Requiring anything more is completely unreasonable and a serious indication of bad faith. If Koreans want to impose one set of rules for Korean products and another set of tougher rules for identical imported products, they should just say so, tear up the US free trade agreement as well as any others they’ve signed or are negotiating and accept the economic consequences of that isolation.