Study of the cross-strait food security agreement

In September 2008, the baby milk powder products of Sanlu Group, made in China and imported to Taiwan, were found contaminated with melamine, a chemical raw material which would cause the infant death; Taiwan has been imported China-made dairy products as the food processing raw material for a long time, so when numerous users found their imported non-dairy creamer and many other products might contain melamine, the immediate and huge recall made consumers panic and food producers lost a lot of money. The lack of efficient reporting system between Taiwan and China, complementary measures, and the related laws and regulations made the food safety cooperation across the Taiwan Straits even more important. For the protection of the food hygiene and safety and people’s health, with the purpose that both sides can together ensure the food safety, Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits signed the “Food Safety Agreement across the Taiwan Straits” based on the food safety issues between Taiwan and China on November 4th, 2008.

The food safety issue has received high attention not only in Taiwan and China but the whole world. The global circulation of foods makes the single contaminated product produced in a country or area threaten other countries and the health of the world-wide consumers. Food safety is not just about hygiene problem because even if the environment of the food resource or the inspection of the food import and export are improved, the risk of using non-safe food would not be zero. Besides economy and health issues, food safety problem would cause consumers to lose their trust in food production and selling system, and that would affect people who are in the related industries. In short, food safety is an issue affecting a society’s stability. The melamine case did not only cause a certain level of problem for the people and society across the Taiwan Straits but also increase the government’s internal cost of maintaining social safety and order.

Therefore, this research was started from the non-traditional safety concept, and extended the included human safety concept to hygiene safety. Only clean environment can produce safe food products, so hygiene and food go together.
Secondly, the researcher used the current international regulations and took out the research variable and frame to compare with the food safety cooperation across the Taiwan Straits. Lastly, from the background of the food safety cooperation across the Taiwan Straits, the researcher checked on the advancement, evaluation and influence of the food safety cooperation across the Taiwan Straits, and gave opinions and suggestions on the food safety cooperation across the Taiwan Straits.