HONG KONG—China’s food security remains “grim” after a series of high-profile contamination cases, the Chinese Ministry of Health said, following passage of a new food-safety law aimed at the country’s half-million food processing companies.
The Chinese legislature on Saturday passed a new food-safety law, effective June 1, setting quality and safety standards and systems for regulation and monitoring.
The law aims to streamline hundreds of disparate regulations and standards covering China’s 500,000 food processing companies.
The core problem for China's food safety is that China's media have no freedom at all when covering food safety issues."
Zhou Qing<br/>
But critics said freer media and stepped-up enforcement are also essential.
“At present, China’s food-security situation remains grim with high risks and contradictions,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
It said the government cannot afford “even the slightest relaxation over supervision.”
A draft law was approved in principle in 2007 following scandals involving unsafe toothpaste, seafood, and pet food.
But milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine last year killed at least six children and sickened some 300,000, forcing product recalls around the world.
Pressing needs
The new law won’t solve all food safety issues, experts said.
Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing-based lawyer, downplayed its impact, saying China’s real shortfall lies in enforcement.
“We have regulatory bodies already. What matters now is how you regulate and implement the rules. If you don’t enforce the regulations and rules, all regulatory bodies exist in name only,” Liu said in an interview.
Zhou Qing, author of the 2007 book What Else Can We Eat? An Investigative Report on China's Food Safety, said freer media would also help.
“The core problem for China’s food safety is that China’s media have no freedom at all when covering food safety issues,” Zhou said.
“If another organization like [the new] Food Safety Commission emerged without media or other supervision, it would be easier to abuse the administrative power,” Zhou said.
“The feasible solution for China’s food safety problem is to unleash the media. I understand that China’s Communist Party … feels reluctant … But to free the media only in the food safety sector may have a positive impact,” he said.
U.N. criticism
In October, World Health Organization (WHO) officials presenting a U.N. report on food safety were supportive of efforts to reform China's regulatory system but critical of its response to the melamine scandal.
“An old-fashioned system contributed to this event,” Jorgen Schlundt, director of WHO's food safety department, said at the time.
“A disjointed system with dispersed authority between ministries and agencies resulted in poor communication and a prolonged outbreak with late response,” he said. “If there had been better follow-up, this problem would not have been as severe.”
The 29-page report cited a fractured system that divides responsibility for safety among a host of agencies.
At least 70 people were sickened last week after eating pork products contaminated with an illegal animal feed additive, official media reported.
In 2006, more than 300 people fell ill in Shanghai after eating pig meat or organs that were similarly contaminated.
Original reporting in Mandarin by Wen Jian. Translated by Jia Yuan. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.