Red herrings introduced into fin debate
The letter from Charlie Lim of the Marine Products Association ('Bad faith rife in shark fin campaigns', February 26) is nothing more than a transparent attempt from an industry under pressure to avoid dealing with the real issues in the shark-finning debate.
His attempt to introduce a racist element into this debate is disingenuous at best and insulting and demeaning at worst.
Campaigners attempting to stop this unsustainable practice are no more targeting the Chinese people than those who protest against the Japanese whaling industry's spurious 'scientific research' are targeting the Japanese people. Of course China gets mentioned, as it is overwhelmingly the market that drives the industry.
Targeting Europeans in order to curtail the use of shark's fin soup would make as much sense as targeting the Chinese in an effort to stop bullfighting. What about the increasing numbers of Chinese people who are involved in campaigns against shark finning? Are they anti-Chinese as well?
Considering that this soup has only ever been the preserve of a wealthy elite, one has to be very sceptical of comments referring to thousands of years of 'cultural practice'.
Even if you are generous enough to accept that statement at face value, long-standing cultural practices are regularly changed when they are no longer appropriate. Slavery and foot-binding are a couple that spring to mind.
