Food safety problems in China have been blown out of
proportion.
Last week, the Beijing Telvision Station released "secretly
photographed" footage showing people making baozi, steamed buns
stuffed with 60 per cent cardboard. On Thursday, the report was
declared a sham.
It is good to know we were deceived.
We share the concerns of Li Changjiang, director of the General
Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine,
when he argues that problems involving Chinese foods are not being
seen as what they are.
Considering the country's enormous food exports, problematic
products account for a negligible amount. According to the national
quality watchdog, 99.1 per cent of Chinese food exports to the
United States in the first half of the year were up to standard,
the same figure for American food exports to China being 99.3 per
cent.
The recent media frenzy about contaminated Chinese exports has
greatly tarnished the overall image of the "made in China" label.
But it is to some extent understandable, because we - whether
Chinese or American - all care about what we eat.
We appreciate the general administration's attempt to
communicate and cooperate more closely with destination countries.
But reparatory efforts must not be confined to crisis management.
To build sustainable confidence in our exports, there is an
imperative need to thoroughly review our criteria and regulatory
mechanisms.
Li told the press we have a complete set of rules and mechanisms
to guarantee quality. We do have a lot of people and offices
assigned to take care of food safety. But obviously there are holes
to plug.
We do not worry about more rigorous quality control for exports.
Although Li denied double standards for exports and domestic
consumption, he told the press on Thursday that standards for
exports are subject to country-specific additional standards.
Some recent cases remind us that the quality problems of our
food exports were a natural extension, or spill perhaps, of the
problems in the home market. If, as Li said, the quality control
authorities are applying identical state standards for both
markets, enforcement should be equally strict.
Some of the inferior exports were found to be from
non-accredited producers. If they are not qualified for supplying
for overseas markets, why should they be allowed to sell to the
home market?
(China Daily July 21, 2007)