The year 2008 will go down in China's history as the Olympic year, when the nation won the most gold medals and even US President George W. Bush kowtowed before President Hu Jintao . What a glorious year for the Chinese people. Yet, it has also been one fraught with disaster.
The Olympic fuwa mascots have become the ubiquitous symbols not only of the great Games but also of this year's chain of tragedies. Yingying, the Tibetan antelope, has come to symbolise the March 14 riots in Tibetan regions; Jingjing, the panda, is the symbol of the horrific Sichuan earthquake; Beibei, the fish, is associated with the floods; and Huanhuan, the Olympic flame, is also connected with the torch relay which was disrupted by political protests throughout its journey. Finally, we have the cow Fu Niu Lele, the Paralympic mascot, which is now linked with the contaminated milk tragedy.
Now, as a result of the melamine scandal, many children on the mainland have no milk to drink. Imported powdered milk costs at least 150 yuan (HK$169) per tin, compared with 10 yuan for the local product. Many families are unable to afford the imported product, merely underscoring a system that now caters to the tastes of the rich.
China's media initially dismissed the milk scandal as a problem that only affected children, because, they said, big, strong adults could drink lots of toxins and not have to worry. So what was the problem? Indeed, unspoken rules within mainland China's food product industry sanction cheating and falsifying ingredients.
What can one expect in a country where regulations are drafted by officials isolated from accountability, where those rules are 'enforced' by corrupt officials, and where entrepreneurs think only about short-term gains? The problems stem from a valueless, hopelessly inept and corrupt system, which honours those who cheat, steal, impose hardship on others and generally lie to the public.
China's milk industry has been booming - its one-child policy and broader social health concerns encouraged more people to drink milk. But nobody envisioned that drinking mainland milk could actually be detrimental to their health.
