Officials said they had found salmonella and growth-enhancers in several imported US chicken products.
Last year, 51 deaths in Panama were blamed on medicine tainted with Chinese chemicals and, this year, some US pets died from food with Chinese gluten.
China this week also executed a top official for approving unsafe drugs.
'Exceptional'
China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said salmonella had been found in products from the largest US meat processor, Tyson Foods.
Chicken feet supplied by Sanderson Farms had growth enhancers and anti-parasite drugs, it said.
Among the suspended US operators were Cargill Meat Solutions, AJC International and Triumph Foods.
Most of the firms have not yet commented, but a Cargill spokesman denied the claims.
Beijing has vowed to improve its quality control by streamlining its fractured monitoring system.
This week it also executed the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, for taking bribes in approving unsafe drugs.
Quality control head Li Yuanping recently insisted tainted Chinese food exports were rare.
"All of them are exceptional cases. There is no such thing as zero risk. China-made products should not be labelled as substandard just because of a few bad producers."
Apart from pet food and cough syrup, international concern has also been raised over Chinese toothpaste, tyres, jewellery, seafood and toys."
Ever since Tiananmen Square, you remember that fracas don't ya, it has been hoped that the chinese people would slowly but surely demand a representative government that worked for the people and not the other way around. Okay, coolbeans. Problem is, modern china is being run a lot like feudal Europe was; lords and lady's ordering vassals hither an yon. The merchant class has prospered, but never on an even playing field. Few nations bowing under the yoke of communism could ever hope to, even one with so large a working class. The chinese way to compete was to flood the marketplace with cheap goods, much as Japan did during the 60's and 70's after we told them that it'd be cool if they stopped making guns and went to something less harrowing for the world to witness, such as manufacture cars. It's changed now because we want them to make some more guns and lay off on some of them cars, but that's off the beaten path so lets continue.
The Japanese assent to prosperity was via dogged determination. Not having to provide for it's own defense, resources could be allocated for commerce, and the rest is history. What china is trying to do is have its cake and eat it too. Mega-armies PLUS mega-trade. Problem is, as the Soviets discovered, the only way to have both working at the same time was to do so under the guiding principals of a democracy. If the working class can't have it's fair share of the pie, then quality goes down the toilet and you wind up with what's going on in china today. Something had to give and the weakest link, quality products assembled via stringent quality controls, was and will remain china's Achilles heel. Slave labor is really cool for making knicknacks, but sucks when it comes to hi-tech. Hi-tech means more educated workers, but more educated workers means they want a piece of the action, so there really IS no way out of the corner china has painted itself into. As long as there's a Wal-Mart there will be a prosperous china, but growth can only come from taking that next step, the one above making cheap throwaway products for obese soccer moms.
An even-steven trade war means china loses, and bigtime. But as long as we have President's so very frightened of pissing china off, our country will be forced to grin and bear it. The chinese will pout and mutter and ban American products, and suddenly our focus will stray away from being ultra picky when it comes to otherwise harmless additives such as ethylene glycol in doggie biscuits. But the core is rotten, and china's hope for achieving technological supremacy or at the very least a stand-off versus the countries that can actually invent then assemble modern hardware, is doomed to failure. Serfs don't care, and free men want a fair share.
No comments:
Post a Comment