China Executes Dramatic Food Quality Improvements
China is executing the guy “responsible” for the recent food quality problems to demonstrate how serious they are about improving things. Perhaps the Bush administration should take a page out of the Chinese regulatory playbook. Though executing all the incompetents in the White House would all but clear the joint out.
MSNBC: China’s former top drug regulator was sentenced to death Tuesday for taking bribes to approve untested medicines, as the country’s main quality control agency announced its first recall system targeting unsafe food products.
The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has publicly taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods — from pet-food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with industrial chemicals to tainted antibiotics.
The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court convicted Zheng Xiaoyu for taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 when he was director of the State Food and Drug Administration, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The court then issued the death penalty, the report said.
Also Tuesday, an official from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said that the recall system will be part of a new regulation crafted by the agency and will be implemented by the end of the year.“All domestic and foreign food producers and distributors will be obliged to follow the system,” Wu Jianping, director general of the administration’s food production and supervision department, was quoted as saying in the state-run China Daily newspaper.
The recall system would be put in place gradually and will focus on “potentially dangerous and unapproved food products” the report said.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I actually don’t have a problem with this sentence if he was taking bribes. However, the people giving the bribes need to be executed too just like drug dealers here in Meth, heroin, etc. should be too.
He, like the illegal drug dealers kill people. It is murder because they know what those drugs will do. They know they are potentially killing people and still they sell the goods, the drugs.
He is committing treason too. His country will lose respect, sales, power, and trust needed for a nation rising out of the ashes of poverty. He has betrayed the people of China just as the politicians here that got on TV and said “bomb these vehicles, they have less armor, these soldiers have less body armor, these soldiers are undermanned, under led, tired, demoralized, etc.” That was information that was to be kept behind closed doors and argued over out of the eye of the enemy. Revealing that information is treason because it gives “aid and comfort” to the enemy.
China has its own traitors and apparently is dealing with them much more harshly because being “politically correct” in a totalitarian government isn’t necessary. Glad they are acting, sad it is totalitarian.
May 31st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
This is great!! It’s the OPPOSITE of the race to the bottom. It’s a race to the top!! Good ideas are where you find them. So we had better go after the FDA, USDA ect… in order to “compete with China”.
May 31st, 2007 at 3:48 pm
How did we get all the e coli in the spinich and the other problems that have been surfacing?
Did any of you see the video on the news of the McDonalds (I believe) in New York where they filmed through the window, the rats running around on the floor?
I would say you are right Bill. We do have some problems right here at home with our food quality.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Jan
I think that was KFC.
And both of you are right!
May 31st, 2007 at 5:24 pm
One theme I’ve focused on with the blog is the concept of big business vs. small business. Not a problem until big business gets special breaks. The case of Creekstone farms is interesting. And there’s news about that one. It’s about the beef industry and the USDA…
May 31st, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Thanks John for the KFC correction.
Bill. Also the small business penalty. A big business like the one I arrested the son of the CEO could afford the 80 lawyers they had because they were international in size. But, my friend’s Brother-in-law with one accountant had to hire 3 more just to keep up with Sarbanes-Oxley and it hurt him tremendously.
The bulk of the regulations can be dealt with by big business but destroy the profits of the mom and pop stores.
One reason some businesses fail when a Walmart comes to town is not just the buying in bulk but the lower costs of overhead including meeting all the regulations and accounting requirements.
The more cost, the more you need a “big” business spread out where the compliance and regulation costs can be also spread among all the consumers that use those stores in all the cities of a state or nation.
So, why do we have all that regulation? Because voters say “protect me.” We don’t want to have to go through the hassle of suing some business for bad practices or unsafe products or for poor treatment of employees, etc. We want somebody else to do it automatically but, that takes tax dollars, regulations, enforcement, etc. and that, in turn, takes the incentive away for many who would enter business.
I don’t see a way out of this mess and it is another reason empires rise and fall. The people start depending too much on government to take care of them against unscrupulous businesses and that not only drives costs up but many businesses out of business.
Funny how we survived for over 150 years without all the “nanny government.” But, now, we can’t live without it. Was it unfair? You bet. That was why families and friends were important. That is why being involved in local government was important. When there was a problem, you had people to turn to, not just some government agency.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Came across this at The Peoples Daily a Chinese govt paper:
http://www.danwei.org/blogs/can_the_us_guarantee_food_safe.php
May 31st, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Everyone’s got a beef . . .
Choson Ilbo, Seoul (May 31, 2007)–-Rib bones measuring up to 15 cm have been found in a recent shipment of beef imported from the U.S. in violation of an import agreement that only permits boneless meat. As a result, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry suspended beef shipments from one meat processing plant in the U.S. The ministry on Wednesday said quarantine inspections of 492 boxes of beef or 15.2 tons imported via Busan Port last Friday found bone-in beef parts in two boxes or 53 kg. The ministry therefore decided temporarily to suspend shipments from one of the 36 U.S. plants authorized to process Korea-bound meat. http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200705/200705310026.html
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May 31st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I think we have more problems than just illegals working in meat packing plants, huh?
We may need a little “house cleaning” here too.
June 1st, 2007 at 7:20 am
If illegals do everything for us guess what happens. We become fat, lazy, and unhealthy. And the “race to the bottom” will ensure that food producers will continue to cut corners here, China, everywhere.
June 4th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Riigghhtt . . .
All that Mad Cow disease was because of illegals . . . illegal cows crossing over from Canada, I’ll bet.