This is just too amusing. Taiwan's exposed to the "poison oil" incident (Taiwanese media themselves call it the Poison Oil Storm), and these past few days, everyone's calling for heads to roll.

Legislative Yuan demanding accountability, people taking to the streets in protest, the whole island pulling products off shelves for recalls and investigations.

The benzo[a]pyrene detected in Taiwan this time is 8.1 μg/kg, while their standard is no more than 2.0 μg/kg, same as the EU's, so yeah, it's poison oil. But on the mainland, the standard for edible oil is 10 μg/kg—which means this "poison oil" in Taiwan would count as compliant edible oil on the mainland.

Even with such a lax standard of 10 μg/kg, mainland manufacturers have had multiple cases of exceeding it. For instance, Beidahuang state-owned enterprise commissioned Sanjiu Nongken Golden Bean Oil & Fat to produce organic soybean oil, which tested at 15.9 μg/kg, 59% over the limit; Hunan Jinhuo tea seed oil showed about 60 μg/kg in the company's own checks, six times the limit back then... This is practically poisoning people.

Over an edible oil that's compliant by mainland standards, Taiwan's kicking up a fuss like it's a full-blown uprising. But back when mainland tanker trucks meant for kerosene were used to haul edible oil, we griped a bit and that was it—no street protests, just carrying on with our peaceful days and poetic distant dreams.

But it wouldn't be fair to call mainlanders cowardly for that, because a dozen or so years ago, people here did regularly hit the streets to protest chemical plants, waste incinerators, forced demolitions—I even joined in twice myself.

So what happened over these past dozen years? Everyone in the world knows.

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