No beef with Canadians

The big news today may be that Canada will resume exports of under-thirty-month beef to South Korea, something that was stopped in 2003 after a Mad Cow Disease-afflicted bovine from Canada was discovered in the US. Japan also halted such imports, meaning the US and Canada lost two of their top three export markets.

But with Canadian beef returning to Korean supermarkets and restaurants, don't expect major demonstrations and candlelight vigils like we saw in 2008. There will be some handwringing and minor demonstrations, as there were when the FTA with Chile and later with the EU were passed.

That's because, while there will be anger among Hanu Beef producers (there's no frickin' w in 한우!) about further competition from abroad (Australia, the US, and now Canada), the chinboistas do not have much of political value to gain from going after Canada or Canadians. To understand what I'm talking about, read this post from three years ago.

Yup. And that's why no one on the pro-Pyongyang left is really making an attempt to take the murder of a college co-ed by her university lecturer ex-boyfriend from Canada and paint a bigger picture about Canadians in general.

Three things these Canadian cows headed for Korea have in common with Canadian English teachers also headed for Korea: (1) they'll be treated like cattle,  (2) their living arrangements will be about the same size, and (3) they'll have the same number of roommates. 

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