Eye on China

“Some producers and merchants in China’s highly competitive [food supply] market cut corners, add toxic substances, or skimp on safety controls to fatten razor-thin profit margins or gain some other competitive edge,” concluded a July 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Ever since the Cultural Revolution, China’s Communist leaders have emphasized agricultural self-sufficiency—the domestic production of food sufficient to feed its burgeoning population. As a result, meeting ever-increasing food production quotas has been a vital responsibility for farmers and processors. The system fostered a disregard, or at least benign neglect, of public health and safety. “Just as we have enough to feed ourselves, we have this food safety problem,” Vice Premier Wang Qishan told a meeting of legislators in March, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. “This is really embarrassing for us.”

China formed a new Cabinet-level food safety commission and enacted comprehensive legislation in 2009 following the melamine baby formula scandal that killed at least six infants and sickened 300,000 in 2007 and 2008 (see sidebar). The new law created national standards to replace a fragmented patchwork of regulations overseen by myriad government agencies. This past April, the central government ordered a crackdown on food safety offenders. After just three months, authorities reported that they had inspected 5.92 million food businesses, arrested about 2,000 suspects, and shut down more than 4,900 operations for illegal practices. It is unclear how effective or durable this effort will be. “If the pressure continues, well and good,” said UC Berkeley’s Lubman. “But too many campaigns just fizzle out.”

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Figure 1: Includes meat; fish and seafood; dairy; vegetables, fruits, and nuts; coffee, tea, and spices; cereals, flours, oil seeds; fats; meat and fish preparations; sugar and confectionery; cocoa; cereal and dairy preparations; other edible preparations.
Source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.

In a June report to the National People’s Congress, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee Lu Yongxiang said that although the 2009 law had been somewhat successful, more needed to be done. He pointed to an overall lack of knowledge about the law, faulted local agencies for lax oversight, and urged the public and media to report food outbreaks more quickly. Following this, China’s Supreme Court ordered judges nationwide to hand down harsher sentences, including the death penalty, for food safety violators. (This runs counter to recent Chinese efforts to reduce the number of death sentences.) The central government also instructed local governments to reward and protect whistleblowers who provide useful information on food safety violators and encouraged media outlets to investigate and report wrongdoing.

Among the reform efforts, the government’s encouragement of whistle-blowing and public reporting may best reflect China’s seriousness. Prior to this, government authorities had muzzled any publication or website that attempted to publicize food safety problems. Citizens who organized petitions or sought greater accountability and restitution for damages found themselves blacklisted, imprisoned, or both. For example, Zhao Lianhai, a former food safety worker, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison in 2010 for “disturbing the social order.” His son had been among those sickened by melamine in 2008, and Zhao led a citizens’ campaign seeking greater restitution and medical treatment from the government. He was granted a medical parole last December.

Also, in September, the Ministry of Industry announced plans to create a “Food Industry Credit System,” a nationwide public information platform to collect and disseminate information about food producers. The ministry will list companies that are “trustworthy” and those that are not. While participation is voluntary for most companies, those involved in manufacturing infant milk powder will be required to supply information.