It's been a year and half, and it's going nowhere. I'm tired of both governments, especially the US government. It's been ridiculous, so let me explain briefly about what has been going on.
BSE (mad cow disease) was found from a cow in the US, so Japan stopped importing US beef. Also, Japan found BSE from cows in Japan. Then the Japanese government decided to apply high standard inspection on Japanese beef. The result was that they found BSE mostly from over 20 months old cows, so they decided that over 20 months cows are okay. The US government said, however, the inspection standard is too high, and it should be over 30 months old. Thus, the US government thinks it is okay to have some BSE beef in the market, but Japanese government and the people did not like the low quality beef.
Now Japan is insisting the US to apply better inspection method, and the US is insisting Japan to have lower inspection standard. Japan is saying eWe are waiting for their answerf, and the US is saying eThey are so slowf. Apparently this is going nowhere. Thus, the US government had a good idea. Many congressmen and high-rank officials began to press Japan by imposing economic sanctions. They even sent Rice on this beef issue, but she failed. Thus, it has been ridiculous that the US stopped listening Japanese voice while they are ignoring Canadafs demand to open beef trade between the country and the US.
Whatfs more ridiculous is that Japan is the biggest client for the US. What kind of shop tells the customers to buy the inequality products and otherwise they will kick customersf ass? Japanese people are extremely sensitive from Americansf eyes. Japanese are people who get irritated if the train is late for 1 minute. Japanese are the people who have to have 2 mega pixel camera, TV and radio on their cell phone. Japanese are the people who put a pollen extracting function on their cars. There is no way the US can sell low-standard-inspection-applied beef to Japanese.
If Japanese government is forced to buy the beef in the future, they will have to inform the people about everything they have to say for its danger and risk. Then, it is up to the people.
