As a long-time supporter of the boycott of Chinese goods, I encourage you to carefully read through the following paragraphs:...Two-thirds of the Chinese people are reportedly worried about food safety. As well they should be. Outlook Weekly, an official publication, admitted recently that most of China's 450,000 food makers operate outside the law. Over 60 percent neither conduct mandatory safety tests nor have the ability to do so, while a full third do not even have a government license. Although the publication ducked the question, it is not difficult to see how this came about: In a culture of corruption the existence of regulations and required inspections is only relevant in that it enables officials to charge more for their venality.
Despite massive problems with food safety, the Chinese government blandly claims that only 196 peopled died of food poisoning in 2006. By way of comparison, the comparable number for the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control, is 5,000. (See CDC, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol5no5/mead.htm). Given that the U.S. population is only a quarter of China's, and that its system of food handling and inspections is vastly more safe and sophisticated, the real number of deaths for China is probably on the order of 100,000. The fact that Chinese government statistics, where they are published at all, are unreliable further underlines the fundamental dishonesty that permeates the system.
What are we to make of President Hu Jintao's decision to execute the disgraced head of China's Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu? Some would argue that this indicates that the Communist Party leadership is finally getting serious about cleaning up the nation's food and drug supply. That, of course, is precisely what we are supposed to think. In reality, it was Zheng's misfortune to come to trial precisely when American pets were sickening and dying. Any other time, and an official as senior as Zheng, who had taken less than a million dollars in bribes--chump change by Chinese standards--would have simply been jailed. But as it was, he will be sacrificed--in order to protect China's exports.Most Americans don't understand that China's economic growth depends heavily on exports, particularly to the United States. Domestic consumption within China is suppressed--the Chinese people are not allowed to buy most of the products produced for export--which in turn pushes the savings rate up to an incredible 25 percent or so. This money is then reinvested in new factories, technology, and production lines, all of which results in even more goods for export. This China Economic Model, as it might be called, has produced the highest growth rates ever registered for a developing country. This year, if not the next, China's total exports will surpass those of the United States. China is well on its way to becoming the world's most wealthy and powerful country...
The full text of Stephen Mosher's discerning, provocative essay,"The Poisoning of America: China's Food and Drugs are Unsafe at any Price" is available, like all of the archived weekly briefings of the Population Research Institute, at this page.
