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Analyzing China’s ‘bad blood’

HIV-infected blood products for hemophiliacs.
Baby-killing milk powder.
Catfish laced with antibiotics.
Thomas the Tank Engine toys coated with lead paint.
Children-choking chewing gum
Cancer-causing egg yolks.

They sound like props out of a sci-fi horror flick, but in reality, they represent the most recent food and drug scandals to hit China.

Geoff Dyer analyzes the lack of accountability and transparency in China’s political system and how it undermines consumer confidence and product safety in his article for the Financial Times, “Bad blood between the state and stricken consumers.“

Why, oh why can’t the Chinese government regulate its industries? And why can’t China’s authorities and its suffering citizens get along? (Dyer highlights one particularly confrontational incident in which one angry HIV-positive patient, claimed to be infected with blood treatment manufactured by a state-owned company, Shanghai Institute of Biological Products, “drew his own blood with a syringe and attacked a policeman with it.” Yowza!)

Major points:

• The problems:
  • “The government’s main quality watchdog said this month that nearly 20 per cent of the products it had tested this year failed to meet safety and labelling standards.”
  • “According to consultants at A.T. Kearney, China has only 30,000 refrigerated food trucks and needs 10 times as many. The country will need to invest $100bn in warehousing and transport to repair its ‘broken food safety process’.”
  • “Last year, the government revealed it had discovered 114,000 unlicensed drugmakers. It also says there are 450,000 food manufacturers, 80 per cent of which have fewer than 10 staff.”
• The reasons:
  • China lags behind in developing the necessary institutional structures to manage capitalism, i.e. independent regulatory agencies, being able to seek redress in the legal system, and a free press.
  • China is not a democracy.
  • There are too many regulators, often in competition with each other, which makes it difficult to supervise, collaborate and maintain efficiency, and this also contributes to corruption and bribery.
  • Many companies do not have the resources to invest in hygiene.
  • The media are shuttered for exposing scandals and weaknesses in the government.
  • The economy is growing faster than the government can keep up with it.

[tags]China, social responsibility, drug scandal, food scandal[/tags]

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