A disturbing response
This sounds like the response of a Communist country to criticism, does it not? Tit for tat. WSJ:
China is taking the rare step of responding to rising criticism of the safety of its food supply, saying that its food shipments to the U.S. are as safe as — or safer than — U.S. shipments to China.
China also is denying responsibility for the contamination of cough syrup that killed more than 100 people in Panama last year, the latest sign of how the Chinese are countering criticism for allegedly shipping contaminated food and drugs overseas. However, an official for a Spanish company that acted as a middleman for an ingredient in the cough syrup contradicted China’s account of events.
Li Yuanping, a director general with the Chinese agency that sets food-safety standards for imports and exports, said yesterday in Beijing that at least 99% of food exports from China headed to the U.S. between 2004 and last year passed inspection.
China’s defense came a day after the Food and Drug Administration cited a pair of American companies for adding a potentially dangerous chemical — melamine — to animal-feed ingredients. In March, the FDA said it found that melamine-tainted wheat flour shipped from China ended up in U.S. pet foods linked to the deaths of thousands of dogs and cats. Since then, China has come under scrutiny over concerns about the safety of its food exports and how closely they are regulated.
In a related story, China appears to have possibly concocted an instant show trial of Evian, of all things, and other foreign products: “China refused a shipment of Evian bottled water for what it said were unsafe bacterial levels and of Australian seafood that it said was tainted with heavy metals.” (It may also be that the Evian matter is related to a business dispute between Groupe Danone and its Chinese JV partner.) These actions seem very defensive, even a little paranoid. We note for the record that we have bought several products from China over the past year that turned out to be defective. Maybe the paranoia is justified.
We remind you that the Chinese government has also recently said that there is no Shanghai stock market bubble; rather, “brilliant policy decisions” account for the market’s selling at 40x earnings. There are stresses on all systems when growth is too fast. We are perhaps seeing some of them now.