Just a PR Move or Real Change in China?

Posted on July 26, 2007
by Maureen Keene

It’s too soon to tell. But CNN reports that a new food safety team is being formed by top Chinese government officials to tackle the nation’s safety and quality problems. The recent scandals involving poison ingredients in pet food, deadly chemicals in cough medicine, antibiotics in seafood, and more, have damaged China’s reputation with consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world.

China faces even greater food quality issues at home. It has been widely reported that in a recent study 20% of China’s food products intended for domestic consumption were found to be unsafe.

This announcement of the safety team is an about face from the official stance of just a few months ago, when in the wake of the pet food recall, Chinese government officials denied there was a problem and declared their critics to be protectionists.

The challenge will be in reining in what some journalists have termed the “wild west” of China’s manufacturers — small family farmers and “entrepreneurs” who cut corners and use toxic and illegal substances in an attempt to increase their profits. The new team will also have to manage a tangled bureaucracy which, if the country’s drug agency is any indicator, is likely to be riddled with corruption.

Let’s hope that this is a sincere effort at reform — and that the chosen team is up to the task.

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