China promises to revise Food and Drug regulation, execute boatloads of shady entrepreneurs

NYT: China to Revise Rules on Food and Drug Safety

Responding to growing international concerns about tainted food and counterfeit drugs, China said late Tuesday that it was overhauling its food and drug safety regulations and would introduce nationwide inspections.
The announcement, from the State Council, the nation’s highest administrative body, is the strongest signal yet that Beijing is moving to crack down on the sale of dangerous food and medicine and trying to calm fears that some of its exports pose health problems.
But the challenges facing China are enormous because its regulatory system is weak and enforcement is difficult.
The announcement follows a series of embarrassing episodes this year involving China’s export of tainted pet food ingredients and toothpaste. The shipments of pet food ingredients, contaminated by the chemical melamine, set off one of the largest pet food recalls in United States history.

China’s State Council understands all too well that their economic and industrial clout is entirely dependent upon the West buying all their shit, and lots of it. As many pundits have exclaimed, statistically you’re more likely to be in an automobile accident than killed by a Chinese consumer product, but the cloud, fanned by the panic-prone media casts a shadow on all of China’s exports. Anything that curtails the flow of consumer goods out of the country is a bad, bad thing, and I don’t doubt that the Chinese authorities will severely punish any firms whose short-sighted greed imperil China’s export trade.

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