Is government the only one to blame for food scandals?
- By Du Jianguo
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China.org.cn, July 2, 2011
Moreover, while exaggerating China's food scandals, many Chinese journalists also create the myth that "advanced," "developed" countries and regions do not have such problems, or that they have already solved them. Almost as if to give the lie to such myth-making, in May the "developed" region of Taiwan, so reputed for food safety, was found to be contaminating its beverages with toxic plasticizers. On the heels of that scandal, e. coli broke out in Europe. Only then did the Chinese media decrease its emphasis on food safety.
On April 28, 2011, Southern Weekend reprinted an article by Phoenix columnist Yu Tianren, "Who is responsible for the Myth of Japanese Food Safety?" This article is typical of the attitude outlined above. Yu claims, "Since the 1980s, food safety has made great progress in Japan. Other than the Wakayama curry-poisoning incident in July 1998, which was proven to be a case of intentional poisoning, most incidents involving food safety have been small-scale and limited to an acceptable scope, so there have been basically no serious scandals. Now when people talk about food safety in Japan, they are usually referring to imports." I am hesitant to agree with Mr. Yu's claim. My knowledge of Japan is extremely shallow, but just off the top of my head I can recall an e. coli O157 outbreak in the 1990s, and in this century there have been the Snow Brand Milk poisoning and scamming incidents, all with serious consequences and public uproar. If Mr. Yu is an expert on Japan, how could he be unaware of these incidents?
Mr. Yu's article does correctly point out that "threats to food safety are not due to carelessness on the part of employees, but intentional efforts by unscrupulous business people in the pursuit of profit; it is not only China who has such people, but Japan as well." But when summing up at the end, Yu emphasizes "it is first and foremost government negligence that is to blame for problems with food safety." Those "unscrupulous business people" have disappeared without a trace, leaving only the government to bear responsibility. Yu even goes so far to write that we need to "prevent the government from using the punishment of business people to shift consumers' attention away from its own culpability." So when business people cause harm to society, the government is supposed to refrain from punishing them, and that is considered socially responsible?
The editors of Southern Weekend, recommending the article, said "The Japanese experience is to allow consumers to seek a government remedy to their problems whenever they see fit." This is not unreasonable, but why should consumers be encouraged only to cause trouble for the government and not for the "unscrupulous business people" and their "irresponsible enterprises"? If both parties are not held responsible, we are setting a double standard.
The editors conclude by writing, "Why do we have so many food scandals in China? In a word, because the public does not yet have enough power. What does this mean? Institutionally this is a complicated question, but the advanced experience of modern countries could be summarized in two phrases: let the useless officials go to hell, and let the irresponsible enterprises go out of business."
As discussed above, the so-called "advanced experience of modern countries" is not all it is cracked up to be. And, although the editors add the phrase "let the irresponsible enterprises go out of business," in the context of the rest of the article, one gets the feeling this phrase is tacked on at the end to make it appear more balanced. When the government takes action against such enterprises, the media can be expected to change its standards – just like it did during the Huang Guangyu case last year.
The author is a writer and commentator in Beijing.
(This article was written in Chinese, and translated by Matt H.)
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn
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