Damaging perceptions of the quality and safety of Chinese products - even if not entirely fair or warranted - cannot be easily undone. With the mainland running a massive trade surplus with its major trading partners, it is all the more important for Beijing to take the issue seriously. Otherwise it will provide protectionists with one more excuse - on top of the alleged attempt to manipulate the value of the renminbi - to advance their unsavoury agenda of stifling free trade.
As a consumer of mainland fresh produce, Hong Kong is well aware that product safety can be an explosive issue. Through our special relationship, it has been relatively easy to deal with scares over contaminated and tainted food and restore confidence. But in China's relations with other countries, product safety issues can easily lead to political disputes.
Maintaining consistent product standards can be a headache for any rapidly emerging economy. Japan's battle to establish credibility in world markets a generation ago, marked by zealous dedication to quality control, attests to that. However, the proliferation of product safety cases on the mainland shows China has not addressed the same issue as effectively.
Chinese officials put the blame on Panamanian businessmen after cough medicine found to contain antifreeze solvent disguised as glycerin killed 51 people in the Central American country last year. But it is worrying that the same solvent exported from China was blamed for 88 deaths in Haiti a decade ago, and that traces of the same poison have been found in Chinese-made toothpaste recently banned in many countries as well as Hong Kong.
There is an emerging perception abroad that food safety is a chronic problem, highlighted by the deaths of dogs and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine. Recent recalls and controls imposed on mainland goods by American regulators involved fish contaminated with drugs or unsafe additives, or tainted with salmonella, unhygienic frozen crab meat and toy trains coloured with lead paint.
It is not as if China's product inspectors have been idle, as evidenced by yesterday's announcement of the discovery of excessive additives and preservatives in nearly 40 of 100 children's snacks sold at big stores and wholesale markets. This followed recalls of fake polio vaccines, vitamins and baby formula. But the mainland continues to reap the harvest sown by rampant crime and corruption at nearly every level, highlighted by the recent death sentence on its top drug regulator for taking bribes from pharmaceutical firms to approve substandard medicines.
