THEAUTOSPORT.com

Car world at this moment. Press Digest. BETA

   For some, Chinese product scares are an opportunity calling China s economy surges, but consumer advocacy lags Today in Asia - Pacific Tensions rise at Pakistani mosque siege China may need a fresh approach to regulating its often unruly economy Questions arise about origins of terror plot in Britain The answer, say people who have studied the country s regulatory system, is a cautious yes.But first, they say, Beijing must take a fresh approach to inspecting and policing its often-unruly economy.

Chinese exporters sold nearly $1 trillion worth of goods overseas last year.Fakes and shoddy goods, by most measures, made up no more than a tiny fraction of that total.Yet the string of product safety scandals reflects a persistent roguish undercurrent in the Chinese economy that extensive media coverage, new laws and tougher enforcement have not eliminated.

Roosevelt s government had to overcome ideological opposition to regulating private-sector commerce.China has a different political challenge: its authoritarian government, though under the control of one party, has struggled to develop a modern, unified regulatory system that can supervise a dynamic market economy."Competition inside our bureaucracy has led to a diffusion of power and a tendency to shirk responsibility," says Mao Shoulong, a public policy expert at People s University in Beijing.

"Cracking down on individual criminals doesn t solve the problem.We need to fix the whole system." Safety lapses are a serious side effect of China s gradual and still incomplete efforts to separate politics and business.To spur economic growth in the 1980s, top leaders gave local officials more power.

The goal was to undercut socialist conservatives in the central government who exercised tight controls.Regulatory power was also scattered.Entrepreneurs, foreign investors and peasant farmers assumed dominant roles in production.

But safety, as well as labor and environmental standards, fell by the wayside.Scores of people died after ingesting bathtub baijiu, or rice wine, that substituted cheap, industrial-grade alcohol for the real stuff.Condiments used as spices for hot-pot cooking contained paraffin wax.

Vermicelli noodles carried a cancer-causing agent, as did a popular red dye, called Sudan Red, that was used by Kentucky Fried Chicken and Heinz, among other companies.Hundreds of parents in Liaoning Province were so frustrated by the local government s response to a spate of food poisonings at a school cafeteria in 2003 that they blocked the local railroad.Perhaps the most sensational case occurred in 2004, when small factories in central China produced cheap infant milk formula that lacked protein.

Some 50 infants in Anhui Province died from malnutrition after their parents and some doctors mistook their symptoms - bloated faces and hands - as a sign of overfeeding.Since then, regulatory efforts have been strengthened, but often with limited results.As many as 17 bureaucracies have overlapping responsibilities in the food and drug sphere alone, and they jealously guard their power.

The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine have all vied for monitoring roles.The reason: They wanted to collect license fees and fines to supplement their measly budgets.No less significantly, inspectors and their bosses could collect bribes in exchange for favors.

"It came down to turf warfare between departments," said Roger Skinner, a retired British regulator who advised the Chinese government on improving food safety on behalf of the World Health Organization."If they can t enforce, they will lose revenue." Realizing they had created a muddle of competing bureaucracies, top leaders in 2003 formed the State Food and Drug Administration, named after its U.S.counterpart, that on paper had "superministerial authority" to coordinate all the other agencies that monitored the politically sensitive food and drug sphere.

The agency quickly fell victim to infighting, however, and lost clout in 2005, when its first director, Zheng Xiaoyu, was forced out.He was later convicted of taking bribes to speed approval of new drugs.After the latest string of safety scandals erupted, Zheng was sentenced to death.

Back to top For some, Chinese product scares are an opportunity calling .

Main keywords: World Health Organization, Kentucky Fried Chicken, General Administration, Asia Pacific Tensions, State Administration, Health Organization, Quality Supervision, Liaoning Province, China S, Pacific Tensions, Kentucky Fried, Anhui Province

Read article at iht.com