Brawl in Taiwan parliament over US meat imports

Fighting erupted in the Taiwanese parliament on Friday, with lawmakers throwing pig guts at each other over a soon-to-be enacted policy that would allow imports of US pork and beef.

Taiwan's Premier Su Tseng-chang was due to give a regularly scheduled policy report to lawmakers on Friday morning about the pork policy when opposition party lawmakers from the Nationalist Party (Kuomingtang, KMT) blocked his attempt to speak by dumping bags of pig organs his way.

Legislators from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) attempted to stop them, resulting in chaos and fighting.

DPP lawmakers could be seen wrestling with KMT lawmakers on the floor during the chaos.

President Tsai Ing-wen's administration lifted a long-standing ban on U.S. pork and beef imports in August, in a move seen as one of the first steps towards possibly negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. The ban is due to be lifted in January.

That decision has been met with fierce opposition, both by Kuomintang party and individual citizens. The new policy allows imports of pork with acceptable residues of ractopamine, a drug added into animal feed that promotes the growth of lean meat that some farmers use in pigs.

U.S. pork imports would account for a small percentage of the island's consumption, but the KMT has seized on the issue in an effort to mobilise support following successive failures at the polls.