The Chinese government has closed a number of food factories:
BEIJING — At least 180 food factories in China have been shut down for contaminating their products with illegal materials such as formaldehyde, paraffin wax and industrial oils and dyes.
Inspectors have seized $26-million (U.S.) worth of tainted or substandard food products since a national inspection campaign began last December, according to state media. This could be just a fraction of the true problem, since the inspections are still continuing in rural and suburban areas.
“These are not isolated cases,” said Han Yi, director of quality control at China’s national inspection agency, in comments quoted by the Chinese media.
Among the 23,000 contaminated food products seized by the inspectors were common items such as flour, rice, baby-milk powder, candy, pickles, biscuits, bean curd, seafood and meat products. Some of the factories were also using expired or recycled food.
The crackdown on food factories is the latest official response to the mounting anxiety over the safety of food and drugs in China. This wave of inspections began after several scandals last year, including duck eggs that had been contaminated with an industrial red dye – normally used in the leather and fabric industries. A Chinese-made contaminated ingredient in pet food sold in North America sickened thousands of animals and sparked a massive recall.
Most of the 180 closed factories were small unlicensed plants with fewer than 10 employees – but these kinds of small factories represent 75 per cent of China’s one million food-processing plants.
Don’t be misled into thinking that this move is a response to the recalls of Chinese food ingredients in the United States or, indeed, that it’s a substantive response at all. Closing these factories is primarily for domestic consumption. Practically all of the tainted, contaminated, and substandard food or food ingredients produced in Chinese factories are sold in China and there’s little doubt that the closings are a move by the government to promote harmony at home. The recalls in the U. S. haven’t been particularly big news in China.
I continue to read op-eds complaining about Chinese products and, unless I’m imagining things, their tone is getting angrier. I’ve also read some observations that these op-eds and news articles are part of a campaign against Chinese products on the part of big business. That’s absurd. American big business is selling Chinese products. If there’s an orchestrated campaign at all it’s a campaign in the direction of isolationism on the part of big media.
